


Built Like a Moth

by youcrashstanding



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: And cursing in general, Blood, Dubious Consent, Liberal use of the word 'fuck', M/M, dubcon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-09
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-07 09:00:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 42,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcrashstanding/pseuds/youcrashstanding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki shows up in Tony Stark's penthouse at a ridiculous hour, on the run and demanding that drink Tony never gave him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Carnage That I've Seen.

_“Stark.”_    
  
A single word, like silk and ice. Tony’s eyes snap open and he swallows down an insane rush of panic; he looks up and is greeted with venomous green eyes, gleaming inhumanly in the darkness of his bedroom.   
  
“Loki.” He swallows hard and casts a glance about for anything in the immediate vicinity that could be used as a weapon against the god kneeling on his bed.  
  
Loki looks... smaller than Tony recalled, and he realizes that he is without most of his armor, and hopefully, maybe, gods be willing (ha ha) he is also weaponless.   
  
Not that the God of Mischief needed weapons if he wanted to take Tony to pieces in his own bed. Tony knows that Loki doesn’t, and that knowledge makes him feel more afraid than he can recall feeling in a long time. Of course, fear makes Tony babble like an asshole, and god or no god, Tony is  _Tony_.  
  
“Jesus, how long have you been watching me sleep? Is this your new plan of action, and if so, aren’t you missing some glitter?  _I thought they had you locked up in Asgard_.”  
  
Loki frowns at the missed pop culture reference, and laughs at the idea that he’d stay confined anywhere. The laugh is hitched,  pained, as if he were having trouble catching the breath to make it.  
  
“You promised me a drink, Man of Iron. Did you not? I’ve come to collect it.”  
  
“ _Are you fucking kidding me_?” Tony bolts up, a startled laugh shaking through him, and he shoves at the god, who, not expecting such force from the smaller man, nearly falls from the bed in an unceremonious heap. He saves himself last minute by standing rather smoothly and casting a nasty look at the angry, near-helpless superhero tangled in a nest of expensive Egyptian linen sheets.  
  
“No, I’m not.” Loki’s face splits into a crooked, broken grin that is more a feral flash of teeth than a sign of happiness. “After all I’ve gone through at the hands of my supposed brethren, I’d very much appreciate a strong drink.”   
  
Now that he looks, really looks- and now that JARVIS has seen fit to actually turn on a fucking light, * _Thanks for the warning, you dick*,_  Tony thinks, he can see that Loki is in fact entirely armor-less, helmet-less, and probably weaponless; he is clad in nothing but a pair of black leather trousers, a little worse for wear, and a green roughspun shirt with its laces undone.  The shirt hangs oddly at his sides, torn and gaping unevenly about his lean frame.  
  
His pale, thin shoulders gleam in the low light, and his collarbones play in stark relief against the rest of him. He looks...  _delicate_. Delicate, fragile, and starved. A deep, angry red gash marrs his left cheek, and though it is obviously healing, from its width and the color of the blood congealing there it certainly would have laid his face open to the bone when it was fresh.   
  
Blood edges along his shirt at the ribs. When Loki wraps his arms lightly around himself, scowling at Stark, Tony notices blood along his sides, just above his hips. It takes all the fun out of playing peek-a-boo with Loki’s rather marvelously flat stomach.  
  
The more Tony looks, the more he takes in, the more uncomfortable he gets. Loki is an enemy, sure, but what in the hell had they been doing to him in his homeland? Torture? Thor hadn’t mentioned any shit like that.   
  
“Looks like you got yourself a little fucked up on your glorious quest for freedom.”   
  
Loki doesn’t reply, save for a twist of his mouth. He watches Tony with those green eyes, and Tony can see that he is swaying, ever so slightly, as if standing were an effort. He feels a little bad for shoving him, but then, Loki did throw him out of a damned window; surely the god can handle a shove.  
  
Tony slips out of his bed, suddenly a touch self-conscious that he is clad in red and gold silk boxers (because  _fuck you, that’s why_  was Tony’s motto for his sleepwear) but then, fuck  _this_  guy if he thinks Tony would cover up or act apologetic for his state of undress. It’s his house, it’s his bed, and he’ll wear what he wants in the middle of the night when an uninvited god gatecrashes his one decent night’s sleep in forever.  
  
Loki follows Tony’s form across the room to the bar on the other side of it. Tony feels his eyes on his skin and it’s definitely a weird sensation, and he’s not sure at all what it means. He’s a hell of a lot more comfortable with Loki trying to kill him, he realizes, or at the very least, being contained, with lots of monitors on him.  
  
“Don’t fucking throw a knife at me, dude. You said you wanted a drink.”  
  
“I had no intention of such,” Loki replied, and he is suddenly there, leaning heavily on the bar, facing Tony. His eyes have dark circles under them, and he really,  _truly_  looks like hell.  
  
“Can’t you just walk somewhere? Shit!” Tony jumps back, hand flitting across his arc reactor in a nervous, self-protective motion. “I just woke up, for fuck’s sakes, don’t do that, have you no manners?”  
  
“I wasn’t aware your mortal psyche was so very  _fragile_ , Stark,” Loki replied, rolling his eyes. He coughs, and there is blood on his curled hand when he’s done. He makes a face and wipes the blood away on his pants.  
  
 _“I_  wasn’t aware you were such an asshole. Oh wait, yes, actually. I was. It’s sort of implied in  _God of Lies_  isn’t it?”  
  
Loki’s eyes narrow, but he says nothing as Tony pours two Scotches and slides one to Loki. He wraps long, pale fingers around the glass and takes a sip. His dark eyebrows jump and after he swallows he says, “Not bad, actually.” He closes those beautiful eyes and lets out a shaky sigh, and slumps down more against the bar. Tony doesn’t think he’s ever seen a god so damned... tired, before. Certainly not Thor. Loki didn’t even look this shitty after his fight with the Hulk. Tony is dimly aware that if Thor could see his brother now, he’d have an absolute shit fit over it.  
  
“Long night?” Tony asks, awkwardly, surprising himself because really, why the fuck would HE care if one of their number one villains had a bad day?  
  
“One of the longest, really,” Loki says darkly, reaching to take the glass again and nearly polishing it off in one long sip. He doesn’t shudder at the taste like so many non-alcoholic (or rather, non-Tony) humans do.   
  
“Want another?” Tony asks as he’s nursing his own drink. He decides to hell with it, and perches atop the bar stool; he has a feeling he’s not going to be thrown through another window or torn to bloody pieces or smashed into a paste; at least, not now.  
  
“Yes,” Loki hisses, and when he opens his eyes he brings them to Tony’s face. “I do hope you’ve not alerted the others somehow, with your machines,” he spares a glance upward, “because I absolutely do not intend to go back into captivity tonight. I will take this entire city down with me if I have to,” he adds, and his voice is hard and cold, biting out the last words. “ _I am not going back to Asgard_.”  
  
“I haven’t, relax.  _You_  are the sneaky one here,” Tony replies. “But you couldn't blame me if I did, because what the fuck? We haven’t heard anything about you in weeks, and you are my enemy, dude. Enemies don’t show up for late night cocktail hour.”  
  
“I dislike doing what’s expected of me,” Loki remarks dryly, as Tony fills his glass again. Loki’s hand trembles slightly as he takes the glass. He looks tired. Very, very tired, in that way that a thing gets before it gives up and dies.  
  
“What in the fuck happened, man?” Tony asks finally. “You show up in my bedroom without your reindeer horns, without all that ridiculously stylish armor, and you look like someone beat the absolute dogshit out of you. What the fuck, dude? You don’t even like me. Threats, window. You tried to destroy my goddamn HOUSE. And also my city. And my friends. And me.”  
  
Loki gives him a long look, and there it is again, the sense that the god is exhausted.  
  
“I haven’t anywhere else to turn, if you’d prefer honesty,” Loki replies coolly. “And I’d like... this. In peace.” He finishes the second glass after giving it a bit of a wave in Tony’s general direction. “I’d very much prefer to heal in relative safety, and you are no threat to me without your suit.”   
  
It’s a lot more honesty than Tony thought he’d ever hear from Loki, and that is enough to make him want to drink more. Shit was getting  _weird_. Shit was getting deep.  
  
“I don’t know if that was a compliment or an insult.”  
  
“Both,” Loki replies and he takes the decanter of Scotch and pours himself another. The movement gives Tony a view of his shoulder, the very obvious tear in his shirt, and the dried blood beneath. He can’t keep the quiet horror off of his face; it’s late, and he’s just not that good at pretending things don’t gross him out.  
  
Loki laughs at Tony’s expression. “Curious? Odin’s rather tired of my... misdeeds, mortal. I did not get a slap on the wrist, that’s how you say it, yes?” Another long drink. He closes his eyes again, and turns quite suddenly, showing Tony the red ruin that was once his back.  
  
Tony feels sick.  
  
Completely fucking sick.  
  
He’s seen fucked up shit before. He’s been _fucked_  up, but this...  
  
What should be a pale expanse of perfect skin is a mess of blood and torn flesh that’s trying to heal around some of the most terrible injuries Tony’s ever seen on someone still standing under their own power; there are long, jagged lines along his spine, so deep they appear to have severed his ribs; as it is, bone can be seen beneath rakes of ragged flesh, and angry bruises line the mess; something wet and gleaming is just beneath the cuts here and there, as if... as if things had been rearranged inside.  
  
Tony coughs and looks away to disguise a very strong urge to vomit up the Scotch in his belly.  
  
“What in the  _FUCK_  is that.”  
  
“My dearest father gave me  _wings_ ,” Loki replied, turning back to face Tony. “It is called the blood eagle. I have... been threatened with such before. It was decided that... my trouble here on Midgard merited such a punishment. I was left on a tree. There was an actual eagle in residence. It was quite ceremonial.”  
  
“You’re fucking kidding me.”  
  
“I do not kid, I assure you.”  
  
“How did you...”  
  
“I didn’t want to die,” Loki replies. “And I can take a lot of pain. It will heal. It is healing as we speak, but it takes some time and I am... I am in no mood for running or fighting.” He looks exhausted, utterly exhausted and it’s no wonder.  
  
“Fury isn't gonna hear about this from me,” Tony says, finally. “I mean, if you go and blow shit up as soon as you’re... better, all bets are off, but right now- I’m not telling anyone.” He frowns. “I’m not that big of a prick. I... dude, I don’t do torture. I don’t condone that shit.”  
  
“How magnanimous of you. My... the Asgardians certainly do not share your opinions on the matter.”  
  
“I don’t think your brother would, either.”  
  
“Oh,  _heavens_  no.” Loki waves his hand absently, and finishes another glass. His eyes are shining now, unfocused. “My dear, idiot brother, he’d have had a... what do you say here, a  _fit_... a fit, yes, if he’d born witness to this deed.” Loki chuckles dryly, and coughs again. “I won’t say I... did not deserve it. I am not so foolish to think that a failed attempt at the domination of a realm merits no punishment, but... I am not so righteous that I’d sit through it quietly. Not after the first few days.”  
  
“You’re not righteous at all, actually,” Tony points out thoughtfully. “I’m not really, either. Probably why I’m still talking to you. And  _days_? You fucking stayed like that for days?”  
  
“Yes. And that is why I’m here.” Loki waves his glass and gives another tired smile. “Days. It was most uncomfortable, and that darling eagle I spoke of made certain that it did not heal during our time together. Wretched creature.”  
  
Tony pales, completely unable to imagine letting his innards hang out for DAYS. “You need to sleep. I don’t really know shit about gods, but I’m sure that sleep is a universal necessity for people who get knocked around and gutted and... yeah. Basically all those terrible things.”   
  
“I’ll partake in your spirits, Stark, but I am not- will not- sleep in your presence. I am no fool.”  
  
“What am I going to do?” Tony asks, putting his glass on the bar and stalking the few feet between them. “I just fucking told you I wasn't going to call anyone. I’m giving you a CHANCE. I know it’s ridiculous, and you’re probably going to eat my goddamn face while I sleep or something, but YOU need sleep, YOU look fucking awful, and I don’t like the idea of kicking a dude while he’s... down. Like, totally down. You have surpassed being on the floor and are in the basement of down.”  
  
Loki cocks his head at Tony and says nothing. Blood trickles down the side of his mouth and he licks it away absently.  
  
Tony is embarrassed that despite Loki’s condition, and Tony’s own anger at the situation, he reacts to the flick of Loki’s tongue the way he does. He decides that his body is just trolling the shit out of him and looks away because no, blood is never sexy, and fuck’s sakes, the guy is toeing the edge of falling apart, in the worst literal way. Clearing his throat and walking away before it’s entirely noticeable (except not really because Loki notices everything) Tony starts throwing a pillow on the long, low lounge by the windows. He disappears momentarily and comes back with a sheet; an expensive sheet, but it’s black so maybe, just maybe blood won’t show on it and it’ll be salvageable after all of this, and adds it to the lounge.   
  
“Sit. Stay.” He points at it, and Loki shakes his head bemusedly, and takes his glass, full again, with him to the lounge. He sits slowly, lets out a hiss of pain at the way things shift, and finishes off that Scotch, too.   
  
“You are going to have the worst fucking hangover,” Tony remarks.  
  
“I will not,” Loki refutes. “I am a god, Stark, and your mortal spirits are not nearly so strong as that.”  
  
“You’re slurring a little.”  
  
“I’ve been GUTTED, you ignorant little man. Perfect diction is not my top priority in this moment.”  
  
“Point taken. You ah, you lay on your stomach, I guess. Let me get a look.”  
  
“There’s little you can do. It will heal, I told you, it’s simply quite a bit of damage and it’s taking longer than I expected.”  
  
“Yeah, but I feel like it needs some... I don’t know, some Band-aids or Bactine or something, anything. Just letting that shit hang out can’t be good.”  
  
Loki sighs heavily and sprawls out along the lounge. He is ridiculously tall, but not nearly as muscular as his brother. He rests his head on his crossed arms, and rolls his eyes up to Tony, looking _almost_  nervous.   
  
Tony kneels beside him, ignoring the lingering look he’s getting from the injured god, and glad that the couch is hiding his crotch just in case Loki does something creepily sexy again (and leave it to Loki to make licking his own fucking blood off his mouth attractive), and peels back the ruins of Loki’s shirt.   
  
“We need to take this off.”  
  
He only has to pull a little and the top of the shirt rips in two, and he pushes it down Loki’s shoulders to get a better view of the damage. “They could have at least taken off the shirt before they fucked you up, you know. I mean even Jesus got it bare backed. Ruining clothes is just uncivilized.”  
  
His remark makes Loki give an ugly, broken laugh, and he smiles in spite of himself. Gallows humor, indeed.  
  
The wounds are healing, Loki was right about that, but his back looks terrible, and he can see all sorts of things a person is just not supposed to see. He gets a terrible urge to push one of the ribs that’s jutting out back into place, but holds his hand close to his chest, fighting the feeling, because it’s just not normal or at all okay to be touching other people’s bones.  
  
“No,” Loki tells him, though he can’t see him from this angle. “Push it back. I could not quite get to it, and if it is in the proper place it will heal better. Faster. Please.”  
  
“It’s going to hurt. Like, a lot.” Tony frowns. There’s absolutely nothing sanitary or safe about this. He is not a doctor. He has no idea what he’s doing, and he’s a little tipsy.  
  
“You think I don’t know that?” Loki asks lightly. “I do not mind a little pain. I’d much prefer this fixed than to lay about with the cool night air on my innards.”  
  
Tony tries not to think too hard or long on Loki and his not minding a little pain, tries not to think about the grotesque picture his brain just painted from those awful words, and reaches out and very firmly shoves the offending rib back into place; the resulting movement is disgusting and weird and very wet, and it sounds like ripping silk and maybe tearing open a melon at the same time, with a strange high pop that Tony can’t quite identify. It makes him feel a little sick, but Loki gives a groan that’s half pain, half deep satisfaction, and arches against the awful movement instead of screaming or pulling away, and again Tony’s mind lingers on something very inappropriate and is quietly horrified.   
  
“Jesus,” he remarks, not sure how to take the reaction, or his.  
  
“Better,” Loki mutters, and already it seems like the wound is coming together a little easier. The healing muscles are knotted beneath his pale skin, working to reform. It’s fascinating and gross and Tony isn't able to look away.  
  
“How long ago did you...”  
  
“Escape? Ah, time flows strangely between the realms. Not long. It took a moment to find my bearing here. I did not... arrive where I’d intended. Days on the tree made me... fuzzy, if you will.”  
  
Tony thinks to himself that it’s a goddamn shame that something so hard to kill isn't working on his side.   
  
He realizes that there’s almost no point in fighting Loki if this is the kind of damage he can heal, that this is the shit he can take without his armor and that he can just put himself back together. It’s a giant middle finger to science and all the things Tony used to rely upon as true.  
  
“And you sought me out.”  
  
“Out of all of the mortals I’ve met here, I don’t  _quite_  hate you.”  
  
Tony snorts, shakes his head.  
  
“You are clever. I could not control you. Your armor is well-made, and you are the one who made it. That is enough to... pique my curiosity.”  
  
“That’s just science being bad ass, there.”  
  
“Your science,” Loki points out, “and I am not my brother. I appreciate your science.” He gives a shrug, and winces a touch.   
  
“Thanks. I think. I feel all touched now. Maybe I should giggle? Blush?”   
  
“I’d prefer if you did not,” Loki replies, rolling his eyes. “I said I didn’t... hate you, not that I’m here to ask your hand in marriage, Stark. I would still kill you, in a myriad of painful, slow ways, if I had need of it.”  
  
Tony can think of nothing in reply, so he stands, and says, “Well, thanks for that. But right now, you need... to rest. Again, don’t fucking kill me in my sleep, okay? Don’t make me immediately regret this- and JARVIS... delete any record of Loki’s arrival. All the security footage, all the audio, every last bit. I don’t want this shit on SHIELD’s radar right now.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs, turns to walk across the large penthouse towards his bed. This open floor plan is really kicking him in the ass right now; he’d feel a lot safer if Loki wasn’t in the same room, but then, he reminds himself that walls don’t seem to matter to the god anyway.   
  
“I give you my word that I shall not try to kill you tonight, Stark. At the very least, I shall wait until you've had your breakfast to attempt any violence on your person. It’s only polite.”   
  
With that, Loki turns his head away and settles into the most comfortable position he can attain with his injuries being what they are, and Tony goes back to his bed, surprised to be smiling at Loki’s final quip of the evening.


	2. Who fucking becomes feathers, anyway?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki doesn't understand the concept of "low profile."

  
The couch is empty when Tony staggers out of bed, late as usual. The sun is already high in the sky, shining rudely through the windows and directly into his eyes like a celestial  _fuck you, Tony Stark._  
  
The black sheet he’d left draped on Loki is neatly folded, and there is a note in script too damned perfect to be someone's actual handwriting that says, simply,  _Thank you._  
  
Tony glances around the penthouse one more time, sees that the glass and the decanter are back where they belong, and wonders when in the fuck Loki was able to get up and get out without him noticing. "Jarvis..."

  
“Your visitor left shortly after eight a.m.,” JARVIS tells Tony. “I did not wake you because he did not seem to be interested in causing any damage to your person.”  
  
Tony scrubs his face with his hands and lets out a long sigh. His head hurts, and he’s not entirely sure it’s just a hangover. “At least my spleen’s where it should be and I’m not falling out a fucking window,” he remarks, and JARVIS agrees politely. Tony makes his way to the shower and practically boils himself in it. He can’t help but think of the night before, of Loki’s ruined back, the mesmerizing flick of his tongue, cleaning away his blood...   
  
It shouldn't be as appealing as it is, but it  _is_ , and he just woke up, anyway, and so he takes care of his wandering thoughts then and there, leaning against the slick tile after and breathing in the steaming air. He feels only a little terrible for it, that secret sort of terrible that he hopes he'll forget about later. He's Tony Stark, and he's done worse. A lot worse.

 

 

The day passes in a blur, because Tony can’t seem to focus on anything but the previous evening; the red ruin of Loki's back, that crooked, tired smile, that crazy fucking look in the god's eyes... and the exhaustion there, too. The blood on his lips. The “I don’t hate you” shit. The memories scroll through his brain on a repeat cycle, like when Fury and Steve team up and make him watch the same video of a battle over and over again, demanding his attention, explaining tactics- but this time it’s not him getting thrown into a building, and how he could have done something different, or some batshit costumed psychopath destroying New York. It’s just a sneaky little demigod giving him those eyes and those lips and that voice edged in really expensive Scotch and old pain.

  
It was fucking  _weird_ , not knowing where you stood with a... well not a person, a GOD, who you had spent a lot of time and resources trying to capture. Who spent a lot of time trying to kill you, or otherwise damage your person. Who seemed to hate everyone and everything in existence, and who seemed to live to break shit and make other people’s lives as utterly difficult as possible.  
  
Tony spends hours that melt into days tinkering on things in his workshop, skipping out on Avengers meetings and ignoring angry phone calls and summons from Fury (and even an angrier appearance; working around the look of hate on Fury's face when the doors wouldn't open gives Tony an insane amount of satisfaction), concerned phone calls from Steve, and weird messages from Clint (who sometimes leaves them stuck to Tony’s door with arrows, just because he can). Then, a week after Loki had appeared, disappeared, and Thor and the rest of the team  _still_  hadn't been alerted to Loki's escape from Asgard, Tony is under his Roadster, up to his elbows in engine grease and oil, when JARVIS’ voice cuts through the raucous heavy metal that's been blaring at ridiculous, ear-damaging levels. “Ah, sir. You may wish to take a look at the newscast, and possibly answer those incoming messages from Director Fury. He does seem perturbed and there may be good reason for it.”

  
Tony rolls out from under the car, takes one look at the flatscreen that JARVIS has conveniently turned on for him, at the flaming wreck that had been, at some point in the near past, a rather nice section of Central Park, and let out a stream of obscenities. “ _THAT LITTLE SHITHEAD. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I HELP SAVE HIS GODDAMN LIFE, OR SOMETHING, AND THIS IS... OH, YOU LITTLE FUCK. YOU SQUIRMY LITTLE FUCK_.”  
  
Loki is there,  _of course_ , laughing his unhinged, broken-glass laugh, throwing fucking _trees_  with magic, and the Hulk is just batting them away like an irate green housecat, getting more and more pissed off that he can’t get his hands on the smaller being, and there’s Thor, all shocked and puppy-dog even while he’s trying to protect civilians and keep his teammates from getting smashed. Tony wonders in that moment just how fucking stupid reporters are that they'd stay anywhere near a situation like that.  
  
He’s in his suit moments later, and soaring through the city's airspace towards Central Park, inventing new and colorful insults for Loki, Loki's mother, and possibly everything Loki's ever cared about in his long, long life.  
  
Thor was in the middle of a “brother, please....” when Tony lands, and he’s surprised to see Loki hesitate, his hands glowing creepily with magic that for a moment, he’s decided not to release. He offers Tony a vicious grin.   
  
“Tony Stark. So good of you to join us.” Tony only just misses getting plastered into a tree with a blast of power.  
  
“You know, some people just talk it out,” Tony quips. “Or they knit. Or they do decoupage. You need a better hobby, and probably a lot of counseling.”  
  
“This is all the therapy I need,” Loki replies with another of those hair-raising laughs. Tony ducks another blast, but an innocent tree behind him gets reduced to splinters, the white wood scattered out across the grass as if someone had drop-kicked a box of really big toothpicks.  
  
“What in the fuck happened?” Tony asks, and  _of course_  it’s Steve who answers.    
  
“Thor got word that Loki escaped from his prison in Asgard today. He left the mansion immediately, and I’m guessing it wasn't long before he found Loki. I don’t know what happened before we arrived. But they were busy tearing up the park when the Hulk and I got here.”  
  
Tony had to bite his tongue to avoid making a quip about it being about damned time that the word had gotten out, and instead went back to avoiding magic, trees, and an angry Hulk who was now just swatting at anyone near him. Tony was not about to test the Hulk's usual tolerance for him just now.  
  
Loki crows insults at Thor the entire while, as if he’d not been led meekly back to Asgard by his brother a few short weeks before. Thor was holding his ground, and finally, finally, the two were close enough to touch, Thor with Mjolnir in hand, Loki with his hands outspread, a staff of some kind suddenly there in his grip, as if he’d pulled it from the air, and knowing him he probably had done just that. Some time between his escape and his brief side trip to Tony’s couch and... well, this shit-parade, he’d gotten his armor back. His helmet gleamed in the sun. He was officially back to looking fucking terrifying, and all thoughts of his vulnerability promptly skipped out of Tony's brain for the time being.  
  
“You should have stayed in Asgard, brother,” Thor pants.  
  
“Oh? Tell me, Thor, just how long should I have hung on that gods forsaken tree? How much time was to pass before it was enough?” Loki snarls, baring his teeth in a feral sneer. “I will not martyr myself forever, not for Midgard, not for Asgard, not for  _anything_.”  
  
Thor pauses. “Tree?” His eyes widen, and there are no more words needed. He drops his hammer, takes a step back, and looks very, very lost.   
  
“Mother would not have allowed...” Thor's voice is quieter, emptier than Tony's ever heard it, and for a moment it almost hurts his heart a little. As ridiculous as Thor could be, as naive... he loved his brother, loved him when it was blaringly obvious that very few people anywhere in the entire universe even cared if the other god was alive, much less  _happy_.  
  
“ _Mother had no choice_ ,” Loki snaps. “And she is but one voice against a chorus of hypocrites and cowards all too willing and eager to watch me, the least of  _Odin’_ s sons, bleed.” He lashes out, knocking Thor off his feet, and Tony fires at him, taking Loki hard in the chest with two sharp energy blasts that would have splattered a human like a bright red mural across the carefully manicured landscape.  
  
The god is knocked off his feet, and the Hulk is there before Tony or anyone else is, reaching for the fallen figure, howling incoherently about puny gods and smashing, two of his favorite insults for such an occasion.  
  
Loki gives what can only be described as a hiss, and cuts the air with his hand. His form disappears in a thousand black feathers, and the Hulk howls angrily, slamming his fists into the ground.  
  
“Well, that was an exercise in pointlessness,” Tony muses. “Thor, you good?”  
  
“He’s lying,” Thor says, quietly. “My brother must be lying. I know that they have... they have punished him quite  _severely_  in the past, but I cannot imagine father...”  
  
 _Believe it_ , Tony thinks sharply, but he says nothing. “I don’t think familial disagreement was worth all this,” he waves at the deep ruts in the ground, the broken trees, the smashed fountain, and Clint, who is limping out of the bushes and looking a little dazed, his hair tousled, his suit torn, blood trickling in a line down his left temple.  
  
“ _Fuck no_ , it wasn’t,” Clint agrees. “And can I just reiterate that I hate that creepy fuck? Feathers? Who fucking becomes  _FEATHERS_  anyway?”  
  
  



	3. Say you want me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Tony makes a face, thinking about how silly that would look, here, in this room, and says, “You aren’t getting any more of my Scotch, princess. You fucked up my city, and tossed my co-workers into the shrubbery. That is not how you make friends, has anyone ever told you that?”_

  
  
Tony wants to say he’s  _surprised_  when Loki is waiting for him in his penthouse when he returns home that night, head aching from a debriefing and a full ten minutes of nothing but verbal abuse from an angry Nick Fury.  
  
But he’s  _not_ , not really, because it... it’s just creepy enough to be a thing Loki would do. The god of mischief is pacing about slowly, idly taking in his surroundings, and looking much better than he did the week before. His eyes narrow and his mouth curls into a strange little smile when Tony steps into the room.  
  
“Greetings, Tony Stark.”  
  
“You are SUCH a dick,” Tony says in return. “And also, normal people knock.”  
  
“Have you ever even  _briefly_  considered me ‘normal’? And I am certainly not, as you would say, ‘people’.” Loki is still smiling, and he moves forward far too gracefully for all that leather. The helmet, at least, isn't making an appearance.   
  
Tony makes a face, thinking about how silly that would look, here, in this room, and says,  “You aren't getting any more of my Scotch,  _princess_. You fucked up my city, and tossed my co-workers into the shrubbery. That is not how you make friends, has anyone ever told you that?”  
  
Loki has the grace to feign a pout as he stops only inches away from Tony and begins a slow, predatory circle around the smaller man. “I did not _permanently_  injure anyone and I wouldn't have caused so much damage had your green friend not intervened. I am not about to be whipped about like a child’s doll by that behemoth again. No, thank you.”  
  
“You didn't have to start fucking shit up as soon as you got back. I threw you a favor there, and let you sleep on my couch, and this is how you repay it? I feel like such an  _asshole_ , and I was really rooting on Banner to whip you like a little girl’s hair, actually,” Tony quips. “It would have made me feel better about the entire situation.”  
  
“Poor Tony Stark. One thing in the entire world doesn't go the way you want; the god of LIES betrays your trust! Hold the presses, and pause to play a very small, sad violin, isn't that how it goes?” He stops behind Tony, suddenly, and Tony gets a dizzying rush of fear, anxiety, and a very, very weird thrill from the taller man’s proximity. He thinks back on the shower. On _several_  moments in the shower. And also that one time he woke up from a really  _odd_  dream.  It’s hard to be angry at the moment, because all of those  _other_  feelings are getting in the way.  
  
“Dude. If you stab...”  
  
There are cool lips against his ear.   
  
Tony swallows hard, and his hands are fists, now, and he’s very very still. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest that it almost feels like it's going to climb out of his throat.  
  
“I’m not going to stab you, Stark,” Loki murmurs. “I’m here to thank you for last week.” He chuckles, and the sound glides along Tony's skin like a cat rubbing itself along a favored person's legs. “For your...  _charity_. And for giving me an out this afternoon. No, don’t give me that look. You know precisely what you did and why you did it.”  
  
And then Loki is suddenly on the other side of the room by the bar. It occurs to Tony that Thor never moves like that, that he never has to worry about the other Asgardian sneaking around soundlessly or appearing in places he shouldn't. He prefers that, he thinks, to this popping in and out bullshit.  
  
“Have a drink with me, Stark. I've met my destruction quota for the day, and I feel like celebrating.”  
  
“You have a quota, really?” Tony asks, cocking his head.  
  
“The look on Thor’s face filled it perfectly,” Loki replies with another of those awful grins.  
  
Tony can’t help but laugh. “You are a terrible,  _terrible_  person, Loki. And also, that shit just now? With my ear? And the breathing?  _Kinda gay_.”  
  
Loki arches an eyebrow, tilts his head, and leans against the bar. “And I saw how  _much_  that upset you upon my last visit.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“You are not an idiot. I don’t believe I need to spell it out. I saw you. I  _felt_  you, actually.” His smile goes crooked and he chuckles dryly, “And if you wished to be discreet, perhaps you ought not parade about in nothing but your rather fetching, mood-revealing underwear. Not that I minded them.”  
  
“Are you flirting with me, Prince of Darkness?”  
  
“Am I?” Loki has the grace to look surprised. “Oh,  _heavens_.”  
  
“I wasn't the one being all creepy-sexy and licking blood off my face. What IS that anyway?  _Who does that_ , and do you sparkle in the sun, by the way?”  
  
“Not that I have noticed, Stark, but I suppose since you saw me this very afternoon, you’d know,” Loki remarks, pouring himself a drink, and Tony has to laugh again, and decides in that moment, fuck it, to really just fuck it, and have a drink. No one died today. Loki’s insane, and unbalanced, and dangerous, but he’s also entertaining as hell, attractive (not a thing he was ever mentioning to Loki’s brother again, ever, no matter HOW much alcohol was involved) and isn't currently attempting to kill him, so...  
  
  
  
Nine shots or so later, and Tony’s staggering along the line between reasonably wasted and absolutely shitfaced. “And what was that shit with your ribs?” he asks, suddenly, in a lull in their very strange conversation, leaning against the bar, swirling his glass. His eyes dart from Loki’s face, those fucking eyes that are just  _on_  him, an intensity that Tony’s not used to- the intensity he’s got when he’s with his machines. It's all too much to think about, so he stops trying. “What was that?”  
  
“I’m unaware of what you mean,” Loki replies smoothly, but it’s obvious he doesn’t mean it. He’s not even trying to HIDE that he’s lying, and that pisses Tony off a little. He hates it when people who aren’t him play dumb. He also hates that Loki’s matched him drink for drink and seems to be _far_  more sober than he is.   
  
“I pushed your bones back into your still-bleeding body, dude, and you...” he waves his hands about and makes a face. “You made this... noise... and...”  _and I liked it, and it made me feel fucking terrible about it_ , he finishes in his mind.  
  
“I told you I have a high tolerance for pain. And it's rather relieving to be able to put oneself back together after spending such an amount of time... in pieces.”  
  
“That is  _not_  the same thing as enjoying it.”  
  
“No, it’s not,” Loki muses. “But the two are not mutually exclusive traits.”  
  
Tony scowls and finally says, “So it wasn’t a big deal then, you being torn up on a fucking tree?” Tony makes a face and looks away.  “I legitimately felt really sorry for you, you know. I was... that  _bothered_  me.” It more than bothered him. Tony had no stomach for torture, and there was no other word to describe what he'd seen.   
  
“It  _was_  a big deal, Stark,” Loki replies evenly. “I do  _not_  wish to have my lungs torn from my body by an overzealous eagle. I do not wish to be opened up and left out under the sun for days on end. Neither of those things, or any other part of that experience, held any sort of positive experience for me. I do  _not_ , on the other hand, mind an attractive individual assisting me in healing myself. The context of the pain matters, Stark. It matters quite a bit.”   
  
“I have never once gotten wood off of someone shoving my bones back together, dude. That is freaky shit. Freeeaky shit, and I have _seen_  freaky shit. I have participated in some seriously freaky, maybe illegal shit. And you just said I was hot.  _Hey_.”  
  
Loki’s green, green eyes are not on Tony’s face anymore, and Tony is more than a little flustered, because slightly frightened, creeped out, and turned on are three things that Tony isn’t used to feeling together.  
  
Loki makes it worse by reaching out to run the tips of his fingers along Tony’s jaw, giving him a look that is equal parts cat watching a bird with missing wings and broken legs, and man very much interested in losing clothing.  
  
“This is WEIRD.” Tony pulls away, and is on his feet, if a little awkwardly, wobbling as he points an accusatory finger in Loki’s direction. The liesmith seems utterly unimpressed. “I... I just fucking  _failed_  to capture you. I should have reported your slithery ass when you showed up here the first time, and I didn’t, you wrecked...”  
  
“Do  _shut up_ , Stark.”   
  
“No. Dude, _no_. You were petting me. It’s  _WEIRD_. You’re evil, and evil does not  _pet_  Iron Man. Evil violates treaties, and rules, and fucks up the city and hits people with trees, maybe, or stabs peoples eyes out like you just seem to  _love_  doing, but it does NOT pet.”  
  
“If that is your definition of weird, Stark, I believe we’ve a very, very long way to go.” Loki leans back against the bar and offers a smile that's a little less crazy and a lot more _tempting_.  
  
Tony stares at him, mouth slightly agape, and for once he can think of absolutely  _nothing_  to say. Loki smirks and crooks his finger, and Tony stupidly steps forward, his brain going on screensaver mode, following along with the rush of blood going in the opposite direction. “I am so  _fucked_  right now. I am so awfully fucked. This is such a... this is a really questionable decision,” he’s saying, and Loki laughs again, licks his lips, and leans forward.   
  
“As if you don’t make those anyway, Stark. Have you SEEN this building from the outside?” Loki muses, and those cool lips are at his ear again, and then they’re lower, lingering on the pulse dancing in Tony’s neck. Tony's mouth is suddenly dry, and his knees go weak, and he grips the bar firmly, not sure at all what he should be doing with his other hand. He ignores Loki’s jibe about his awesome fucking building, because he can’t think of anything smartassed to say in response. All of his wit and snark’s just up and abandoned him and he’s a little too tipsy and too turned on to be angry about it.  
  
Loki’s teeth press against his skin and Tony groans, eyes widening, and his hand is in Loki’s thick black hair, pulling him close. Their mouths meet then, and Tony is surprised at how  _good_  Loki tastes. Evil has a flavor like ice, and Scotch, and something a little like... electricity, maybe. Metal. Not human, for sure, but not bad. Not bad at  _all_.  
  
The kiss sends a shock of desire spilling through Tony so deep and quick that he gets light-headed, and his toes curl; a giddy feeling rolls through his stomach, pooling heat in his groin, and the idea that this is fucking STUPID, fucking reckless, that he’s going to die on the floor when Loki tears out his throat is lost under the thought of Loki shirtless again. Naked, actually. Totally fucking naked.  
  
Yes. That’s a good idea. A better idea than responsibility, that’s for damned sure. Responsibility takes a backseat to the needs of Tony’s dick; this is a thing that has been acknowledged by many people, far and wide, and accepted as fact.   
  
“Let us play,” Loki murmurs against Tony’s ear, long-fingered hands coming up to trace along his shoulders before deftly tearing Tony’s shirt off of him. The movement is so quick that Tony doesn’t actually feel the shirt ripped away, and instead looks down to see his bare chest exposed, and the fabric in tatters on the floor.  
  
“Holy SHIT.” Tony blinks and pushes away. “No. Wait. Wait.” He swallows hard. “You’re going to fucking  _eat_  me. Aren’t you.  _Whole_. Like...” his heart is pounding, and the look in Loki’s eyes is so alien to him that he can’t even begin read it.  
  
“I really don’t... I’m not down with getting the shit knocked out of me in bed.”  
  
Loki arches an eyebrow, amused. He reaches out to idly stroke the arc reactor glowing in the center of Tony’s chest.  
  
“And there’s absolutely no fucking way that I can... I can be sure you’re not going to tear me apart. You were throwing TREES today. And laughing about it. I might be an awesome fucking inventor, I might be really smart, but as all of you super-powered bastards have been quick to point out, without my suit I’m pretty breakable.”  
  
Loki merely licks his lips, and leans in to run his tongue along Tony’s collarbone. “I rather  _enjoy_  that you’re afraid of me.” His voice is the whisper of leather on skin and heavy with something very, very dark. “But know that I am well aware of the limits of human anatomy,” he adds, softly. “I am not so foolish as to think you could withstand... all of my  _interests_ , Stark.”  
  
“That doesn’t mean you know the  _line_ ,” Tony makes out, his throat dry. “You’re... this... this is really... hot, right now... but...  _I don’t want to die_.” Because no ass, no matter its quality, was worth dying. Tony was proud of himself that he could, at the very least, recognize that.  
  
“And I don’t wish for you to die,” Loki purrs. “If I did, I would simply have my way with you and kill you, and it would be done. That is not the offer currently on the table, as it were.”  
  
He’s just admitted to fucking someone, and then killing them.   
  
The fear is back, but the desire refuses to fucking go away, and Tony can’t decide if he hates himself or he’s just confused or that it’s just been a while since he’s made out with an attractive man, and … his mind spirals out into a thousand different directions.  
  
“If it makes you feel better,” Loki purrs, and now the god they call Silvertongue is down on his knees in front of Tony, looking up at him with an expression so full of desire, of hunger, that it  _hurts_  to see it, “I will do as you wish. We’ve established that I don’t mind, I think.”  
  
“Do as I wish.” Tony swallows again, looks about the room. The bed seems miles away.  
  
“I see darkness in you, Tony Stark. I saw how you looked at me, injured as I was. You want very much to find the  _edge_  and dance along it. Jump from it, perhaps, and see where you land, if you land at all. I am more than willing to oblige. It is a dance I know well, and one I appreciate.” His pale fingers are gliding down Tony’s thighs, and he nuzzles against the man’s groin, a slow, deliberate movement that ends with those beautiful eyes locking on Tony’s, and his pink tongue flicking out to dart along the button of Tony’s jeans. Loki’s breath whispers along Tony’s stomach and it only makes him harder.   
  
“Jesus fucking shit,” Tony breathes.   
  
“Is that a yes?” Loki asks softly, and those nimble fingers are edging along Tony’s hips, drawing slow circles there. “I certainly hope it is a yes. I’ve all sorts of... feelings to work through, I must admit.”  
  
“ _Feelings_.”  
  
“Frustrations.” Loki runs his tongue very lightly along his teeth, rolling his eyes up to Tony and doing his best to appeal to every dirty thought that he’s ever had.  
  
He wins.  
  
By a fucking landslide.


	4. Let me bend your mind.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’m losing my fucking mind,” Tony breathes, and Loki only smirks._
> 
>  
> 
> _“This is a fine way to go about that,” he answers._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh goodness, there are nude men writhing about in my brain. O_o;;

_“Is that a yes?” Loki asks softly, and those nimble fingers are edging along Tony’s hips, drawing slow circles there. “I certainly hope it is a yes. I’ve all sorts of... feelings to work through, I must admit.”_   
  
_“Feelings.”_   
  
_“Frustrations.” Loki runs his tongue very lightly along his teeth, rolling his eyes up to Tony and doing his best to appeal to every dirty thought that he’s ever had._   
  
_He wins._   
  
_By a fucking landslide._

 

  
  
Tony swallows and wraps a hand in Loki’s hair. The god’s eyes flutter shut, and a self-satisfied smirk plays across his lips.  
  
“Bed. Now.” He gives him a little push, and Loki obliges, still smiling that unsettling little smile. No one should move as fluidly as Loki does, especially not someone so tall, or wearing so many clothes. Loki waits for Tony to sit down, and sinks to his knees again, spreading Tony’s legs and insinuating himself between them. He lowers his mouth to Tony’s stomach, tracing a slow, light, wet line across the planes of the inventor’s abs with his tongue, and stops at the button of his jeans again, sliding them open with his teeth.   
  
“I’m going to rupture a fucking artery or something, you’re  _killing_  me here,” Tony tells him, as Loki laughs and climbs up his legs, onto the bed, all quick and graceful and moving in a way a person just shouldn’t in freaking leather and armor and... he’s wrapped around Tony, going in for another of those other-worldly, soul stealing (god, Tony hopes not  _really_ ) kisses.   
  
“Strip,” Tony tells him when they part, and Loki pulls back, standing above the smaller man, and does as he’s told. He makes it look incredibly easy, and he takes his time with it, eyes all the while on Tony, a smile on his lips as his hands glide along his body, removing leathers and armor and letting the layers fall away from him, piling upon the floor at his feet.  
  
Tony had no  _idea_  that watching a man remove armor could be so hot, and he’s seen more than enough of men shimmying out of it as of late.  
  
Loki stands before him, all pale skin, lean, hard planes of muscle, his eyes like pale green fire and his hair dark as the raven feathers he’d left behind earlier in the day.  
  
“Is this acceptable, Stark?” Loki asks him smoothly. He runs his hands lightly along his now-whole ribs; it was surprising to see after the red, wet ruin his body was before, after the broken skin and the jagged bones and the glistening meat...  
  
And now there was this, this utter  _perfection_. Inhuman. It should have been more off-putting. It really should have, especially with the memory of all the blood.  
  
Tony realizes a part of him wants to see that again, at least, in miniature. That awful edge Loki had spoken about, had teased into being in his mind. Tony  _wants_  that deep, satisfied purr of sound to come spilling out of Loki’s lying mouth again. He wanted to do whatever it took to pull it from him. He reaches forward, wrapping his hand around the god’s narrow wrist, and pulls him down into a harsh kiss.  
  
“I’m losing my fucking mind,” Tony breathes, and Loki only smirks.   
  
“This is a fine way to go about that,” he answers.   
  
  
Loki spills forward, a graceful as a jungle cat and far more frightening in all his strength, in the gleam in those eyes, in the curled smile on his lips. Tony swallows hard, licks his lips, words failing him as the pale god climbs up his body, laying Tony back against the bed, his long legs straddling Tony’s still-clothed hips.  
  
There is no moment of hesitation in the liesmith, no second thought, and he sinks down to take Tony’s mouth in his own, a hot, deep kiss, his hands gliding through Tony’s hair, sliding down his chest, as his body arcs against the inventor’s hips, grinds against him so purposefully that Tony’s nearly overwhelmed with it all; Loki’s desire is a fucking force of nature and not something he thought for a minute he’d get sucked into.  
  
And that’s what it was like, being pulled down by some undertow, ice cold and fiery all at once, magic and smooth skin and all the thoughts about how dangerous this man is, this GOD is, the death tolls, Coulson crumpling on the floor; Thor’s heartache at his brother’s obvious fucking psychotic break... the memory of pain and blood from before, his guarded snark and his sleeping form on Tony’s couch...  
  
It melts away. It’s gone when Loki’s mouth is at his throat, and he’s whispering words Tony never thought he’d hear from that smooth, cultured voice, things that made previous bed partners sound like fucking amateurs,  _playing_  at sex, aping at sensuality.  
  
He manages to slide a hand in Loki’s hair, pulling his head back so that he can lean forward to find the pulse at his throat. Under any other circumstance he’d nip the skin, he’d give it a long, slow lick, he’d rain kisses down the length of it, but not now. Not after everything Loki’s said. He buries his teeth in that white flesh, sharp, hard, and Loki cries out, a sound somewhere between desperation and pleasure and followed with a rush of satisfaction.   
  
Tony finds that he doesn’t want to let go of the god’s raven black hair. He doesn’t want to stop, he isn’t at all concerned if maybe he’s too rough. He pulls Loki against him, grinds up into the other man, and bites again, this time along the sharp line of Loki’s collarbone.   
  
Loki melts against him, a snarl escaping his lips, and he’s kissing Tony, hard and needing and forceful and begging all at the same time, taking Tony’s wrists in his hands and pulling his hands along Loki’s sides, and Tony obliges, digging in with what strength he has- and as a human, it surely isn’t  _much_  by Loki’s standards, but he’s purring anyway, arcing into the touch, and it’s the roughest Tony’s ever  _been_  with a naked person, and part of him is wondering if this is going to lead to some actual fucking blood shed on his brand new sheets, but Loki’s hands are removing his jeans, and he’s suddenly helping shove them off, kicking off his shoes first and almost regretting that his disrobing is not as awesome or sexy or poised as Loki’s was, but those hands are back and they’re on him now, stroking, and he just doesn’t care anymore.  
  
He’s saying ridiculous things like, “Oh my GOD,” when Loki’s tongue replaces his hands, when his fingers twine in Loki’s hair and the god laughs and licks Tony’s free palm like a cat, and Tony just groans, lays back, wondering how in the fuck he’s going to explain this, and then not caring at all about explanations, because Loki has obviously earned the name Silvertongue for more reasons than the myths and Thor would like anyone to think,  _holy shit_.  
  
“I’m not going to last if you keep that up,” he gasps, and Loki gives him a look that makes him feel the lesser of the two, and does not stop. “No,” Tony says weakly, and Loki’s daring him with a gleam in his eyes, an expression that would have been a smirk had Tony’s dick not been in the way of it playing across his face. “NO,” Tony finally says, louder, and he pulls Loki up hard, and the god obliges, as if Tony actually had the strength to move him.   
  
He means it, obviously, that Tony can play at control. It gives Tony something to work with, makes him feel a little less like Alice falling down a fucking hole in the world and more he’s just taking a ride through a weirder portion of his already bizarre life. “Then what do you want, Stark?” Loki asks, pressing his mouth to Tony’s wrist, and giving it a look like he’d very much like to open it, and play with all of the fun, red things inside.   
  
Tony shivers, and can’t decide what that means, and how he feels about it, so instead he says, “I want to fuck you. If I’m making the worst mistake of my life here, if I end up dead in the morning, it’s going to count.”  
  
“As you wish,” Loki murmurs, “And how do you want me?”   
  
He’s really not good at giving innocent looks, at least, not when his hand’s snaked down to stroke Tony’s erection again. He is, however,  _really_ good at giving utterly sinful ones.  
  
“On your hands and knees. Now.”   
  
Loki smiles that secret smile, and slides off of Tony, obliging and making every movement purposeful, sensual, and exactly what Tony needs to see. “You are fucking beautiful, it is ridiculous how fucking beautiful you are,” Tony breathes, on his knees behind the taller man, running his hands along Loki’s long, lean back, playing his fingers over the knobs of his spine, along his ribs. Loki gives an appreciative moan and moves into the touches. Tony drags his fingers down Loki's spine, watches the sinuous arch of the god's back against the sharp movement.   
  
It’s hard to remember all the damage the god’s done, looking at him here, now, and Tony leans forward to plant a kiss in the center of his long spine, continues upward with a slow lick of his tongue, and now it’s Loki panting, shivering with desire, and Tony’s teeth at the back of his neck bring a sound from him that nearly ends Tony right then and there, a shuddering moan that is probably one of the filthiest sounds Tony’s ever brought from another... well, from anyone, like something from a movie, from not-real-life-because-no-one-gets-that-hot-for-something-really, but here he is and here that was and he bites harder, wraps a hand in Loki’s hair again, forces him down, and the long, glorious moan rides high into a laugh that is pure pleasure and sex and  _GOD_  that voice, that mouth, Tony’s spitting in his hand because he actually doesn’t know where the fuck he left lube and wouldn’t want to move anyway, and he’s working fingers into Loki, one, two, three, and it’s way too fucking hot, way too easy, and Loki’s snarling at him to get on with it and  _fuck_  him. He is, then, as if for a second his brain doesn’t function, doesn’t recall, and he’s just in the middle of pounding into the god ( _holy shit Tony you are fucking an actual GOD right now)_  he thinks with a sort of insane giddiness, and he grips Loki’s narrow hips in his hands, pumping away, and the fast, hard pace isn’t throwing Loki off at all, isn’t giving him pause. He’s moaning things Tony can’t understand because he doesn’t speak that language, though it sounds suspiciously like something Germanic. “Talk to me,” he says, riding Loki into the mattress, “I want to know what you’re saying.”   
  
Loki wraps his fingers in the sheets, tears them, fucking tears them like they’re  _nothing_ , and licks his lips, continuing his litany in English, telling Tony just how much he needs this, how good it feels, and yes, ah, yes, harder, he wants his teeth in his neck again, make it hurt, yes, yes...   
  
Tony’s coming so hard his vision seems to spin and his brain’s gone off in a million different directions and spirals and lights and he’s crying out Loki’s name and saying  _HOLY SHIT, OH MY GOD, OH FUCK, OH FUCK_.  
  
Loki follows him, when Tony’s fingers rake down his ribs, hard, harder than they had before, and it’s like their bodies are dancing against one another, riding out their climaxes as long as they can, and Loki is laughing high and wild, a feral, unbalanced sound edged in sex and fierce joy and for a moment Tony wonders if this is just another kind of battle between the two of them.  
  
Tony collapses on top of the god’s back for a moment, chest heaving, letting out a shaky breath and sucking another in, not entirely sure what the fuck he’s supposed to do now. He pulls away from Loki at last, and rolls back onto the bed, a sheen of sweat all over his body, the scent of sex in the air like heavy perfume, and he throws an arm over his eyes and lets out a long breath.  
  
“Oh my fuck. Shit. Oh, shit.” Loki is curled among the pillows when he peeks from under his arm, looking content and rather intent on watching Tony. There is a satisfied smile on his face, and it grows when he meets Tony’s furtive glance.  
  
“I do hope you relearn to use your words,” Loki remarks.

  
“I will when my brain comes back. I think, I think I truly fucked my brains right out.”  
  
Loki snickers and stretches, rolling his shoulders. “That was an acceptable use of my time, I should think,” he says, more to himself than to Tony.  
  
Tony laughs then, shaking his head. “You sounded a lot more passionate about it a few minutes ago. And might I say, sir,  _you are fucking filthy_. Where did you learn such language,” Tony half heartedly chides him.  
  
“On my knees,” Loki remarks idly, and Tony grits his teeth and rolls over to pull Loki towards him again.  
  
“You are fucking  _terrible_ ,” he makes out, before closing his mouth on the god’s.


	5. You are not supposed to be here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t even want to know how the fuck you got past security,” Tony breathes, eyes fluttering shut. “But you should not be here. You know that. Your brother is here. EVERYONE is here,” Tony hisses. 
> 
> “That’s what makes this so much fun,” Loki tells him with a low, rich laugh. “Don’t you think?”

The next morning- early afternoon, really, Tony’s called in to an Avengers meeting and he arrives late, his hair still tousled, and there’s no suit in the world cut well enough to hide the bloom of a violet bruise from the bite on his throat. Natasha rolls her eyes and says something rude in Russian; Clint gives a golf clap and Steve gives him the sad eagle look, coupled with a long-suffering sigh. Bruce seems amused, and entirely unsurprised. Thor looks as if he can’t decide if he’s disappointed in Tony’s lateness or enthused with the reason for it. At least one comment about lusty wenches gets tossed about, and Tony can’t help but flush, because he’s sure if Thor knew the truth he wouldn’t find it  _nearly_  so goddamn funny.

"If we are all finished discussing the plot of  _The Places Tony Stark's Dick Will Go_ , there is a meeting I'd very much like to move forward with," Fury tells them, stalking around the room. 

"Yes, sir," the reply rings out, and Tony slumps into his seat, running a hand through his tousled hair and wishing he could crawl back into bed. He sends a glare over the table at Clint, whose face is scrunched up as he quietly air humps the table in his attempts to bring a dramatic re-enactment of last night to life. 

"More thrusting," Tony hisses, "Give it a good spanking or two. Perfect. Get your back into it, Barton."

Thor cannot hide a laugh at all of this, and that's what betrays them to Fury. His blue eyes widen at Fury's snarl and he casts a look to Tony, who only shakes his head.

"STARK."

"Fury."

"If you motherfuckers are  _through_ , there are actual issues to attend to. You know, that shit you do when you're in your suit, flying around the city? Saving babies? Does that get some of your attention in between the  _cascade of pussy_  that seems to just wash over you in your free time?"

"Jesus, I wish I  _had_  a ..." the look of pain that flashes across Clint's face is surprising, because Natasha actually hasn't moved from her seat. She only smiles from her corner of the table and turns her face to Fury, her face schooled to a perfect, pleasant mask.

"They're finished, sir."

The meeting is brief, the lecture only _mildly_  insulting, and when the Avengers are set free Tony makes it a point to avoid the hell out of Thor; he feels a little guilty and more than a little weird for spending his night finding new and exciting ways to use his co-worker's younger brother like a sex toy.

 

  
  
The days bleed together again. Tony fights on autopilot; they manage to destroy a few dozen robots sent out by a batshit crazy Latvian calling himself Dr. Doom, a moniker Tony and Clint manage to mangle several dozen times in increasingly insulting ways. It’s too easy. Tony gets a little bored because Doom, like most super villains, is predictable in his megalomaniacal bullshit, and his robots, magic- enhanced or not, are not nearly as well built as his own designs.   
  
The nights are different; the nights seem too  _heavy_ , too long, and Tony finds himself avoiding strangers in his bed until he breaks down and ends up with a long legged, raven-haired girl from a West Village nightclub, and it’s  _ho_ t. It’s  _good_  sex and Tony should feel content with it, but he’s not. The girl leaves in the morning, her Louboutins slung over her shoulder as she hails a cab barefoot, casting him an appreciative wink as she slides into the backseat.She's gorgeous, she's got style, and she's ridiculously smart, and she's exactly the type of woman that a man would be on their knees begging to be with again.  
  
She's left her number in neat print (for lipstick) on the mirror in his bathroom.  _Classy_. He wipes it off without copying it into his phone.  
  
He  _hates_  to think that he’s hung up on a goddamn enemy. Hates to think that the reason he feels so weird inside is he’s kind of pining after the God of Chaos. After Thor’s  _younger brother_. There are a million reasons it’s a terrible idea to have a  _thing_  for a psychopath.   
  
Of course, said psychopath moves like a fucking leopard, and had a mouth like... well, like heaven. Said psychopath knew all kinds of deliciously filthy ways to tell Tony he wanted to be fucked, knew how to touch him and how to get just what he wanted, and it was really hard to  _compete_  with that kind of shit.   
  
  
  
He did not expect to see Loki waiting for him in his room at the  _mansion_ , after a long training session down in the gym with the rest of the team.  
  
Of all places,  _not here_ , and his eyes widen ridiculously as the god steps out of the shadows by the window, a smooth, wicked grin on his beautiful face. “Tony Stark. Have you missed me?” he purrs, slinking forward. He’s mere  _inches_  away then, leaning forward to press his cool lips against Tony’s cheek. His tongue flicks out, gliding lightly along the shell of Tony’s ear. “Are you surprised to see me here?”  
  
“I don’t even want to know how the  _fuck_  you got past security,” Tony breathes, eyes fluttering shut. “ _But you should not be here_. You know that. Your brother is here. EVERYONE is here,” Tony hisses.   
  
“That’s what makes this so much  _fun_ ,” Loki tells him with a low, rich laugh. “Don’t you think?” His body is pressed to Tony’s now and Tony finally realizes that the god is wearing... almost normal clothes. Plain black pants that hug his form nicely, a dark green French-cuff button up shirt with the sleeves pushed up at his elbows, exposing his pale forearms. The muscles there are fascinating; Loki has none of his brother’s bulk, but that doesn’t make him shapeless.  _Feline_  comes to Tony’s mind, maybe serpentine. Something slinky and dangerous. Something lean and beautiful and utterly remorseless.  
  
He smells of old paper, of wax, of dust... and blood. Underneath it all is  _blood_  and Tony is sure he does not want to know the source or the reason, and is equally sure he doesn’t care right now because Loki’s hand is between his thighs, stroking him lightly, teasing, and then those nimble fingers are unbuttoning the fly of his jeans. He arcs against the touch, and then lets out a hiss.   
  
“No. Oh hell, no, I can’t do this here. If the others find out...”  
  
“Live a little, isn’t that what you mortals always say?” Loki asks, licking his lips. “I’ve had nothing to distract me now for  _days_.”  
  
Tony laughs, tries to bite it down but can’t. Loki kisses him to silence him, and it is deep and harsh and needing, and Loki sucking lightly at his tongue makes it hard to think at all. They’re writhing against one another on the door, and Tony reaches behind them to lock it, as if they are teenagers and that will somehow help, and then Loki is guiding him to Tony’s bed, giving him that look, that burning, slightly crazy, depraved look that Tony has found he cannot resist, and Tony is laying sprawled against the still-made bed, Loki straddling him, his thighs on either side of Tony’s hips. He arcs against him, his own narrow hips circling, undulating against the smaller man, and the motion is applying the perfect pressure against Tony. He groans and pulls the god down to him for another kiss, before taking Loki’s chin in his hand, turning his head away to the left, exposing a long line of pale, perfect throat. He bites down just at the curve, the skin cool and clean in his mouth, and Loki growls at the pain of it, one hand wrapping in Tony’s hair, the other sliding under him to rest at the small of his back, pulling them closer.   
  
“Harder, Stark, I will not  _break,_ ” Loki hisses, when Tony’s mouth finally slides away from the damage it’s done, and Tony no longer gives one god damn about  _who_  could be on the other side of the door. 

Heart pounding in his chest, Tony flips them, and Loki lets him, giving Tony a twist of a smile that ends with his tongue playing lightly over his teeth. His eyes are gleaming in the low light of the room, and Tony reaches forward, trailing fingers along Loki's cheek. The god chuckles and moves his head, taking Tony's fingertip lightly in his mouth, tongue playing over the pad, a quick flick of movement that makes Tony shudder with desire. Loki laughs, a low growl of sound, biting his lip when footsteps can be heard at the far end of the hall. "Oops," he murmurs, and Tony squeezes his eyes shut, hands coming to his cup his face. 

"You. Are...."

Loki arcs up into him, and reaches up to pull Tony's hands from his face. He gives him another of those 'of course I'm not innocent' looks, and then proceeds to very slowly unbutton his own pants, letting the fabric part to reveal the smooth expanse of skin between his narrow hips.

"Fuck it," Tony states, sliding down Loki's legs to press a kiss to his left hip, tongue tracing a line alone the rise of bone there, other hand working to slide the god's pants off. He ends at the foot of the bed, and slides down, keeping his gaze on Loki, who is watching him with interest, a look of amusement dancing over his features. Tony offers a shit-eating grin in reply, and makes to work Loki's boots off; that accomplished, he finishes removing the god's snug black pants and leaves them in a heap at the foot of the bed. 

Loki's left staring at him, nestled in the pillows, his shirt half-buttoned, only just covering parts of his lower body. Tony swallows hard, slips off his own shirt before climbing back up to meet the other man on the bed, taking his face in his hands and pressing a kiss to his mouth before trailing them to Loki's throat; biting there, hard and deep, (he said  _harder_ , damn it, and Tony is always up for a challenge) and  _fuck_  he's tasting blood, and Loki's fingers twine through his hair, pull him closer, his long legs wrapping around Tony's frame, his spine bowing up to push them together, one long, burning line of flesh. Tony groans into Loki's skin, pulls away, panting now, and Loki leans up to kiss him, a light, nipping tease of contact. 

There is blood pooling in the mark at the juncture of the god's throat and shoulder. His pale fingers brush through it, bring the smudge of red to his lips, and disappear, sucked clean.

"I feel like you're _trying_  to freak me the fuck out," Tony states, arching an eyebrow, and Loki responds with snarling smile and deep, bruising kiss.

He tastes copper and cold and magic and electricity and Tony has to break away before he just melts into the god; has to, because he's got plans for this, ridiculous as it is, and he doesn't want it over so fast. "Goddamn  _immoral_ , you are. Wretched." He shakes his head, and Loki chuckles again.

"I thank you for your compliments, Stark. They really are  _too_  much for my modest ego."

Tony only bites back a laugh and slides down Loki's body to wrap a hand around the base of the other man's cock. Loki give a soft gasp and moves into the touch, lips parted, eyes on the inventor as he very slowly drags his tongue along the underside of Loki's shaft, taking him in his mouth in slow, teasing increments, watching the god come undone beneath him as he works. Those words are back, those long fingers work through his hair as he moves, and Tony finds himself moving into the touch. 

He had only a brief moment of considering the utter inappropriateness of sucking off a super villain in the heart of the Avengers mansion, before he filed it away under  _I'm Tony goddamn Stark and I do what I want,_  and continued merrily about his task until Loki pulls him away from it.

"You should stop before you give me  _ideas_ , Stark," Loki remarks, his words slow and careful, and his eyes shift darker, and Tony finds himself again reminded that there are things slithering through the god's brain that he just _doesn't_  want to know about. Things that would probably send him screaming, or worse, have him begging for more. He hopes there's only so far down this path he's willing to go, but he doesn't trust himself (and he certainly doesn't fucking trust Loki, either)  to find the mark, the place where he takes his toys and goes home. 

"I've been thinking about you," Tony tells him then, cutting through the introspection, "It's really just not  _okay_  to be thinking about fucking you when I'm drinking coffee across the table from your brother."

"It's rather  _perfect_ , actually, from my point of view," Loki tells him. "And that is, of course, the one that matters to me."

They melt together again, Tony's brain dissolving in a tide of want and need, his hands working to slide his pants down around his hips, and he was never more thankful for gym wear than he is now. Loki's got his thighs wrapped around Tony's hips, and  _Christ, fucking hell,_  really, whenever was a man so appealing as Loki is now? The world narrows down and Tony reaches to his nightstand, leaning over Loki in the process, who decides that now is the perfect time to lean up and lick Tony's left nipple, teeth grazing the sensitive skin. Tony groans, pressing against Loki's touch, trying to keep focus and find the bottle he knows for a  _fucking fact_  he has in the drawer, because hey,  _always be prepared_  is his new motto _. "Distracting,"_ he chides, sliding back to his previous position, and Loki offers him a look that in absolutely no way translates to an apology.

" _Fuck me_ , Stark. Now."

He does just as Loki requests, and dirty words and tumbled bodies and several positions later, Tony has Loki face down against the bed, his hands crossed behind his back, resting at the base of his spine in Tony’s grip, Tony’s other hand full of sheet, gripping the bed as he pounds into the lithe, sinuous god writhing beneath him; they both climax in relative silence, bodies arcing together, Tony biting the back of Loki’s neck so hard he’s shocked when he doesn’t get blood again, and Loki is practically purring beneath him, body going boneless with post-orgasm languor.   
  
“Just the thing,” Loki muses, his voice muffled against the comforter. “You are a worthwhile waste of time, Tony Stark,” he adds, and Tony snorts, rolling off the god.  
  
“I’m taking that as a straight compliment.”  
  
“Feel free,” Loki replied, rolling over and stretching. His wiry form catches Tony’s eye and the inventor reaches out, tracing a finger up the center of his chest and ending with his hand cupped at Loki’s jaw, pulling the god’s face to him. He kisses him lightly, and Loki stiffens at the tenderness there. He’s giving Tony a strange, unreadable look as he pulls away, and Tony has a weird moment where he feels self conscious. After everything, it's  _this_  that gives Loki pause.   
  
“You going to be out fucking shit up and raining death on the city again soon?” he ventures.   
  
“As if I’d tell you my plans,” Loki replies, eyes narrowed as he crawls across the bed to retrieve his clothes; he dresses in relative silence, and Tony feels only a little creepy watching him the way he does.  
  
“Not going to stay this time? Sense of adventure all worn out?"  
  
“I think not. My brother, however dense, is going to notice my presence here sooner or later. I’d rather it be when I am not  _actually_  in attendance.”  
  
Tony gives him a look stolen from Natasha's repertoire and hisses, “Don't you  _dare_  tell me that Thor is going to KNOW that...”

"You're a clever man, Stark. I'm sure you can come up with  _something_  to explain it if he does. I am a  _villain_ , after all."

"Loki..." But he's speaking to air, because Loki is gone, a fading laugh and a wisp of green smoke the only sign that the sneaky little fuck was there to begin with. That and Tony's post-sex hair, and the torn sheets. Shit. Tony sighs and flops back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. "There is absolutely no explanation here that doesn't involve copious amounts of fucking."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, there's more plot coming. I meant to skim over this sex scene but you freaks seem to want MORE OF IT, so I actually took the time to expand upon it.
> 
> Also: sneak fucking should be an Olympic sport.


	6. I will laugh at your life choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter, I know! But I'm getting up to the bits I haven't actually WRITTEN yet and I'm really still trying to work through the Things I'm Going to Do. So here is this little baby chapter THAT HAS NO FUCK IN IT I AM SORRY.

“Greetings, Tony Stark.”  
  
It is, of course, fucking  _Thor_ that ends up in the kitchen the next day when Tony’s preparing his morning coffee.  He prides himself on not spraying the Asgardian with a mouthful of coffee when he turns and Thor is standing too goddamn close for comfort, an empty mug clutched in one big hand, a smile that is just obscene at the hour it is plastered on his handsome face.  
  
There is, of course, no one else around.   
  
Tony feels a trap. A thousand terrible things come to his mind, and he wonders if what Loki said was true, if Thor would  _know_  his brother had been in the mansion the night before. Or that Tony had been, well  _in_  him. Something. He had no idea, really, the extent Asgardian magic worked. Now seemed like a terrible time to find out.  
  
“Thor Odinson. _Howdy_. Good morning. Great fuckin’ coffee, yeah?”  
  
“The coffee is quite delicious this morning, yes. I am fond of this new variety that Natasha has chosen. I am returning for seconds.” Thor steps forward, nearly leaning  _around_ Tony, and managing to look intimidating even in his fluffy, blue, cloud-bedecked robe he’d gotten from Bruce and Clint as a sort of gag gift and a polite  _please stop traipsing about in the morning buck goddamn naked this is not a frat house_  request. Or maybe Tony was just paranoid. Because really, Thor in fleece and slippers couldn't possibly be that threatening.  
  
Tony takes a long pull from his steaming cup to break eye contact with the god, and immediately regrets it when his throat is scalded. He makes a face at the pain and at his multi-layered discomfort with his current situation, and though Thor gives him a strange look. "I hope you are well, Man of Iron. You seem un-eased this day. Perhaps you are working too hard, or sleeping too little."

"Probably both. You know me. Irresponsible as all get out. Workaholic. Insomniac. Whiskey. Also ladies. Lots of ladies. It's a post-breakup tradition on Midguard..."  He’s horribly relieved when Clint rounds the corner, cutting him off from his blathering. The assassin gives a good morning grunt and makes a beeline for the coffee machine, pushing between the other two men, his brown hair sticking up in impossible directions and his eyes squinty with sleep and a mild hangover. 

"Stop crowding the goddamn coffee," Clint grumbles, and Tony steps back towards the refrigerator.  
  
Thor casts another odd, lingering glance Tony’s way, as if there is a thought gathering in his brain, before giving Clint a firm nod of greeting and making his way out of the kitchen, wordless and contemplating his mug. He casts a quick glance over his shoulder as he departs, and Tony does his best to feign cluelessness.  
  
“The shit was that? I’m not used to Thor giving people the crazy eye,” Clint grumbles, turning to face Tony as he leans against kitchen counter.  
  
“Thor being Thor, and can I say, I  _really_  appreciate you and Bruce getting together on that robe. Morning coffee's a lot less  _awkward_ and he is just  _precious_ now."

"If we've have left it up to Tasha it wouldn't have happened," Clint replies dryly, "She didn't see the  _issue_  with a free-balling god skipping around the mansion in the wee hours of the morning. " Clint finishes fixing his cup of coffee, and cradles it to himself like it's something precious.

"Natasha, leering at her co-workers? Well, I  _never_ ," Tony muses, before adding, "Top me off, will ya? I have shit to build, rules to break, genius to spread. Caffeine is  _needed_  to ensure my participation in these things.” Tony holds out his near-empty cup and gives it a wiggle, and Clint sighs, takes it, and refills it.   
  
“Here. Don’t ever say I didn’t do something nice for you. Because  _this_  was that nice thing. Expect me to push you down some stairs to make up for it. Or to laugh at your life choices. Something like that.”  
  
“I’ll prepare myself,” Tony agrees, taking his cup, dumping sugar in it, and exiting the room, trying to ignore his pounding heart and the burn in his throat. 

 

"JARVIS," he says in the elevator, on his way to his workshop, "there will be absolutely no more sleeping with super villains in the mansion. Make a note for me. Stick it somewhere I'll see. That no one else will see. Possibly imprint it in my brain. Can you do that?"

"As of yet I am not capable of imprinting information directly into your brain, sir," JARVIS answers, and Tony waves it off as he paces the elevator.

 _Probably should add on SHIELD premises_ , he adds mentally. Or anywhere else the Avengers may be assembled or partially assembled. Or you know, where Thor may be. It occurs to Tony mid-list of acceptable places to have sex with Chaos Gods that this is one of those life choices that Clint would laugh at. Or maybe Clint wouldn't find it funny, since Loki stole his free will and made him murder innocent people and didn't  _that_  make last night seem selfish and... "well, this is a shit train of thought," Tony mutters to himself as the doors open. "Or maybe I really  _am_  an asshole, cos who am I  _kidding,_ last night was fucking _awesome."_

 _"_ That subject has been discussed, sir _,"_ JARVIS chimes in helpfully at the entrance to the workshop.

" _What_?"

"Your classification as an asshole, sir. It's been the subject of discussion. Your teammates, and Director Fury unanimously agree that..."

" _You're_  the asshole right now, JARVIS."

"I am a product of my programming, sir. I believe that brings us back around to the original point."

"I can't decide if I am  _proud_  of this moment, JARVIS, or if I regret building you at all."

"I will assume it is the latter, sir."

"You do that. Asshole."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jarvis actually is an asshole. Also; I haven't really addressed the Pepper issue in depth; I am assuming that because Tony is a fuck up that Pepper and Tony do not last as an actual couple. Pepper just doesn't tolerate bullshit, and Tony is basically made up of it. I feel like MOST frostiron fics tread that ground over and over so I didn't even write it into the beginning. The "midguardian tradition" thing is my nod to Tony acknowledging that his romance with Pepper is over and that he's doing what's expected and letting his dick make life choices. Which he is doing. Just not with a lot of ladies. Obviously.
> 
> Also it's late and I hope this makes sense cos I'm exhausted and a littttle tipsy. CHEERS.


	7. It's Midnight, and I'm Howling for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit, fuck, oh, this is a bad idea. This is a bad idea. And I’m doing it anyway. I am Tony Stark, I have more money than God, I do not need to explain my reckless fucking behavior.

Loki’s next appearance is not in the mansion, and it is not in the penthouse.  
  
Tony is at an event hosted by Stark Industries at a French-themed high-end  _ultra plush_  hotel. He's only there because Pepper, bless her patience and her resolve, threatened to break his knees if he didn't make an appearance at an event thrown, essentially, in his honor, because fucking  _someone_ had to be around to give a speech about the arc reactor technology that was pioneering the field of clean energy. And that someone had to be Tony Stark, because who the hell else  _understood_  it?

Tony makes his speech like a good boy, quips and snarks and rambles, waving his hands about in emphasis and playing to the crowd pitch-perfect, and is  met with praise and polite claps and raised champagne flutes and the admiring glances of several beautiful women in dresses and jewels so expensive that they could have been traded in for cars. His reasonably sober finish and exit from the stage had even earned him a grateful nod from Pepper.

His CEO makes her way over to him, steady on her stiletto-ed heels. "Thank you, Tony," she tells him, offering a hand on his shoulder and a relieved smile. 

"Worried I was gonna pass out in the ladies' room before I could talk pretty for the masses?" Tony asks, offering a brilliant smile. Pepper rolls her eyes and gives him a long-suffering look. 

"It wouldn't be the first time, Tony, so yes,  _yes_ , it was a concern."

"You hold me to such a low standard, Pep."

"You give me so much to work with,  _Tony,_ " she replies, arching an eyebrow.

It's  _then_  that Tony notices him.

The god looks  _awesome_  in a suit, holy shit, almost as good as he looks naked, almost as good as he looks.... Tony's lost in thoughts that should not be in his head right now, right here, of all places. In the time it takes Tony's brain to put together the realization that Loki is here in the middle of a Big Deal Event with cameras and lots of witnesses, Loki disappears from view. Tony gives a confused start, glances around, but there's no sign of the Asgardian anywhere.

"Shit." 

"What?" Pepper cocks her head, twists to look about. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing, Pep. Go make nice. People _love_  you. You're the people person. You get things done." He pats her forearm lightly, aware that it's the kind of thing that annoys the hell out of her, that makes her glare murder at him and say things like  _Do not **pet**  me, Tony. I am not a thing, Tony. Look at me, Tony. _ All valid. All true things. Why Pepper puts up with his bullshit, Tony can't explain. She's a better, probably saner, no,  _definitely_  saner, person than he is. An angel. He loves that about her.

But  _this_  is not a thing to tell her. This is not a situation he cares to explain. So he wanders off, head full of curiosity now, secretly dancing in glee that none of the other Avengers had agreed to come and play dress-up with him at this ridiculous time waste because that would end very badly. Very badly, very awkwardly, and there are just too many questions he doesn't want to answer, ever, and after Thor's near-miss...

A hand catches his wrist, and it is not Loki's. He's dimly aware that the music has started up again, post-speech, and a strikingly beautiful woman with ebony skin and long, lean limbs wrapped in a sparkling silver dress purrs, "care for a dance, Mr. Stark?" in an accent he can't quite identify. He gives a manic smile and slips a hand around her waist, pulls her close. 

"Sure," he agrees, moving with the music, scanning the crowd. Good cover. Hopefully little talking. She's gorgeous, graceful. A nice way to pass a few minutes. She's actually keeping their conversation going, asking about technical points he's touched on, and it's impressive that someone actually *listened* to his words and didn't just nod, really. 

And then Tony sees him, artfully spinning a pretty blonde, the petite woman moving smoothly in her heels, her skin nearly as pale as Loki's. The god gives him a look so wicked that Tony has to step back from the woman he's dancing with, because all of his feelings have gone directly to his dick and goodness wouldn't that just be a little uncouth, given the circumstances...

Yeah. Loki looks fucking  _good_  and he's watching Tony like he  _knows_ it, the asshole, the distracting, party-crashing  _asshole_.

He looks even better smiling wolfishly at Tony; they make their way towards one another, their partners unaware; they brush past one another, shoulders grazing, and Tony finds his mouth's gone dry, and it's impossible to keep his eyes from flicking to Loki's lean form as he moves to the music. Of  _course_  the God of Mischief can dance. Because really, if fucking and dancing weren't considered  _mischief_  what was? 

Tony wants more than anything to slip away from this woman, from everyone, from the  _world,_ shit, really, all of it- just so that he can have Loki alone on the dance floor. So he can be as close to the other man as the blonde is, her lips curled in a heated smile as she twines against Loki and he moves in turn, those green eyes flashing to Tony's, amusement and the edge of something not at all safe slinking just beneath their depths.

It seems like ages, but Tony knows it's only another song, and then Loki glides past him, fingers brushing Tony's spine through his suit, and Tony’s ear catches Loki’s words, every single one of them, and then Tony is making excuses to the woman he’s leading across the floor, breaking away.  _Shit, fuck, oh, this is a bad idea. This is a bad idea. And I’m doing it anyway. I am Tony Stark, I have more money than God, I do not need to explain my reckless fucking behavior._

He does not notice, of course, when the woman he was dancing with rolls her eyes and stalks off through the crowd for something to drink and more attentive company. She had dealt with spoiled rich men before, and knows when a venture skips the line to  _pointless_.

Loki is waiting in the soft-lit hallway, and as soon as their bodies touch they are climbing all over each other, kissing like they’d drink one another down, devour each other until there’s nothing left. Loki tastes like ice and heat and power, chilling and intoxicating and it fills Tony with a hunger that hurts, that sends things tight and hot spilling down his spine, like velvet brushed against things a hand could never ever touch. They meld into one another there in the hall, growls and moans and bodies pressed hot and close, and then Tony is pulling Loki into the most ridiculously French bathroom he’s ever seen, imported walls and all (and he's seen a lot of Euro-riche in his time as a playboy) locking the door behind them. There’s a beautiful, embroidered blue fainting couch there in the small lounge outside the actual bathroom, opposite a carved stone vanity complete with a perfectly polished mirror that framed them  _perfectly;_  he shoves Loki down onto the lounge, thrilling at the contained violence in the movement. He thanks whatever deity (maybe the one he's groping, that's a good place to start) is listening that there is no attendant, well, in attendance. Probably because shit like this happens a lot whenever Tony's involved in a soiree and maybe hourly staff are tired of seeing Tony in various stages of undress. _Maybe._

The god slides gracefully from the couch to his knees, staring up at Tony with a look like sin had an actual  _expression_ , and those long-fingered hands are ghosting along the fastenings of Tony’s pants, sliding them open, and his lips are there, his tongue, and Tony groans, hands fisting in Loki’s hair. He's vaguely aware of being maneuvered into the couch. Good idea. Standing probably won't be possible soon, knowing Loki's mouth. His eyes find that mirror, and he grins at the deliciousness of the moment, of the absolutely  _terrible, immoral_  idea that's playing out.  _Again._

"We really have to stop meeting like this," Tony gasps, and Loki looks up to give him a look that says, clearly,  _shut the fuck up, Stark._

 __Tony laughs raggedly in response, leaning his head back, looking up at the intricate crystal lights shimmering from the ceiling, secretly glad that he's never owned anything so goddamn gaudy and... _Gallic_  as any of this damned lounge in his  _life,_ but Christ it's hot, getting sucked off by a half-insane super villain on the run in a bourgeoisie bathroom. It's like he's throwing rocks at other rich people,  _look how magnificently slutty I am while you're out talking shit about people's stock investments and who has the better pearls and who actually fucking understood a word of what I said to you jackals._

 __This is victory, this is all the things Tony lives for, the thrill, the crash, the need, the fire. And jesus, fuck, the sweet _burn_  of it, that burn that's cold, maybe, that's hurt and fierce pleasure, that you hold onto because  _fuck_  sanity, _the third time's the charm_ , Tony's thinking, and suddenly it's all too much, too much, and his fingers clench tight in Loki's thick hair, pulling tight, hurting, and Loki gives a purr of pleasure and his tongue is sliding so fucking perfectly along the underside of Tony's cock, and it's ridiculous, really, the physics of it because  _how do you manage that when you're deep throating_ , this is  _quality_ head... Tony mutters unintelligible obscenities while Loki works him until Tony just cannot give anything else, panting, wild-eyed, hands tight against Loki, hurting, and the god is purring, leaning into it, licking his lips and placing slow, lingering kisses on Tony’s palm when the man goes to stroke his cheek. His tongue flicks out, tasting the salt on Tony’s skin, and Tony's glance falls downward and he thinks that that one movement is one of the most erotic things he’s ever seen in his life.

 

  
After, they slink out of the bathroom, going their separate ways,  and Tony can’t help but laugh to himself at the edge of the ballroom's entryway, at how ridiculous all of this is. He knows he looks drunk as shit and thoroughly debauched right now, and can't find it in himself to care. Tony feels ridiculous, a little skeezy, and like he's won the gold in the art of sport fucking supposed enemies.  
  
  
He doesn’t bother finding the woman he was dancing with.  
  
He doesn't make excuses to Pepper, to anyone; he gets the fuck out of the hotel, finds his chauffeured car, and manages to make it known he wants to be dropped off at his penthouse.

He needs alone time.

A  _lot_  of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can't go hard, man, go home.
> 
>  
> 
> Also: I am youcrashquims.tumblr.com for you tumblr folk, if anyone's interested in reading my bullshit.


	8. Stick me, bleed me, don't say you need me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cornering chaos gods is a terrible idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence ahead, folks. Don't say I didn't warn you. It can't be sexytimes all the time.

Tony truly wishes that it’s more high-end sleazy sex that brings him face to face with Loki the next time he sees him.   
It’s decidedly _not_.   
  
The Avengers are in the middle of a forest in upstate New York and it’s  _freezing_. The stars are like glittering white diamonds rolled in endless, inky black velvet above them; they are so far north, so far away from civilization that light pollution doesn't mar the sky.  
  
The forest is alive around them with the sounds of battle and the rustling of their passing. The clean, earthy smell of the forest is marred with the acrid bite of smoke, of burnt green wood. Howls echo through the trees, the fierce grind of metal against metal, and the Avengers are not even a part of the melee yet. Thor is not with the others; they hear his booming voice above the sounds of steel, the dull clash of armor on armor. Another angry howl breaks the night air and Tony realizes with a start that the sound is coming from _Loki_.  
  
  
The scene the team (sans Bruce, who is hanging back for the time being, because from what intel they have, the Hulk could possibly just make this whole thing  _worse_ , instead of better) comes upon has been fashioned out of nightmares and worst-case scenarios and poured out into reality. There are six Asgardians standing in the clearing. There is a grisly, broken baker's dozen of SHIELD agents scattered like forgotten toy soldiers across what had once been a pristine white clearing. Agents that shouldn't have been there, on the front line, Tony thinks, and he's angry and confused because it's fucking hard to look at, and who the shit thought it was a good idea to send them in first _._  

  
The thick trunks of oaks and evergreens alike are painted in dark blood and Tony feels sick, fucking  _sick_ , because at the center of all of this death is Loki, crouched, shoulders heaving with fast, sharp pants of breath like a cornered animal, his battle helmet spattered in blood, the horns tipped in awful, violent red, his hands to the elbows deep, rich crimson, the blood staining green to black. He is weaponless, or so it seems, thanks to the efforts of the Warriors Three and Sif. It smells like death and pennies and ozone in the clearing, and there is energy building that Tony swears he can  _feel_ , like the air before lightning strikes, charged, dangerous. Thor is yards from his brother, left hand outstretched, right hand wisely wrapped around Mjolnir’s handle. There is blood spattered across his face and Tony is not entirely sure if it is Thor's.   
  
“No! By our father I will fix this, Loki, but  _this_  is  _madness_ , these people... please..." (The entirely wrong goddamn thing to say, Tony thinks; but to be fair it's not like Thor is always in possession of common sense when it comes to Loki.)

  
“ _HE IS NOT MY FATHER_!” Loki howls, slashing out with a slim, bloodied left hand; he is far enough from Thor that he cannot hope to hit him; but there is  _power_  in the movement, and Thor is knocked back by an unseen force. The clearing crackles with energy, with a noisome  _sensation_ , thick and crawling and electric and cold, no denying it now; it seems to crawl beneath Tony’s skin, writhing like a mass of beetles, and he notices that it’s affecting the others the same way; Natasha is making a face of disgust and keeping Loki in her sights as if she’d like nothing better than to paint the snow with the insides of his skull. A shudder creeps down Hawkeye's spine, too, and Tony can hear him cursing beneath his breath. He's suddenly extremely goddamn glad that Bruce is hanging back, because this freaky shit would not bode well at all with the other guy. The last thing they needed was the Hulk swinging trees at his favorite rag doll, when said rag doll had completely lost his grasp on reality and seemed willing to do some seriously psychotic shit to keep from being taken in.  
  
“You cannot... you cannot... more death is not the answer, Loki. This is a  _massacre_ , there is no honor to this,” and Thor’s voice breaks a little, pleading.   
  
Loki laughs, high, wild, and his eyes read  _so far gone_  that Tony cannot recognize the man behind the crazy. There's nothing left of the god who'd crouched between Tony's knees only nights before, all heat and need and pitch perfect  _sex._ This Loki is savage and alien and insane, and with all the blood he's even more terrifying than he had been during the Chitauri invasion. This Loki is fucking  _unhinged_ , and it is sobering, and it hurts something weird and small inside Tony that he didn't know existed.   
  
“Massacre?” Loki sneers, head cocked to look down at the body at his feet. “I did not bring this unto them, Thor! This is your _friends_ ' doing. They hunted me down, and were not content when I slipped them, time and time again. I ran until I could not run anymore, and then I gave them my answer. A shame it's written in the blood of these so  _very_  expendable mortals." His poison green eyes narrow.  "I will  _not_  return to Asgard alive. I will  _not_  be torn and beaten to salve Odin’s bruised ego. I will  _not_  be lead through the streets or left to rot in a cell like a dog.”  
  
“You are worse than a dog,” Sif hisses. “You are  _Jotun_. You are a monster. A liar. A _coward_. You are not fit to bear the name Odinson, and you are not fit to call yourself...”  
  
“Still your tongue, Sif,  _please_ ,” Thor tells her, “Please, now is not the time for this. We cannot do this. We cannot continue this here.  _We must not_.”  
  
“Now is the  _perfect_  time for this,” Loki replies coolly, a crooked smile splitting his once-beautiful face. His eyes burn like green fire beneath a mask of blood and death and Tony recognizes that look.  _Rage_. A depth of rage Tony’s pretty fucking sure he’s never witnessed before, and he has seen  _Bruce_  disappear in a mass of screaming green hate.   
  
It’s  _terrifying_.  
  
There is no other word for it. He swallows hard against bile that threatens to rise in his throat, because there's no way he's puking IN his suit like some pathetic amateur. He is Tony Godddamn Stark and he does not puke sober.  _Absolutely not_.  
  
“What in the  _fuck_  is going on?” Clint asks from his right. “And why do I get the feeling we need to be  _not_  here? Like, far, fucking far from here, because _I did not sign up for this shit_.” 

The Asgardians are still talking, ignoring the humans edging through the trees.  
  
“You will come back to Asgard, eventually,” Hogun remarks, rounding on Loki's right. “And when you do,  _Silvertongue_ , your chains will be waiting.”  
  
“You are doing us no favors,” Thor tells his comrade, who only narrows his eyes in response.

  
“I do us favors plenty, thinking on your ill-gotten brother strung from a tree, where liars and cowards belong.”  
  
And  _that_  is when all hell breaks loose, and Lokiseems to forget entirely that he is vastly outnumbered. (No matter, Tony thinks darkly, that the body count is in his favor.)  
  
Thor doesn’t even have time to intervene.

Loki is on Hogun in an instant, and everything is happening at once, shadows bleeding to shadows, and the rising scent of copper and the sharp hiss of Loki's rage in the cold night air, crisp as the frozen branches above their heads. Hogun is fast, Loki is  _faster_ , a blur of motion in the frigid darkness, the moon above catching the edge of swords and armor, the splash of blood here, Loki's pale, angry face, set in feral determination. The warriors are there, circling, and Thor is yelling for them to stay back, a fear in his voice that makes Tony feel even  _worse_.

The warriors mean to take Loki at his word, he knows- if he won't surrender, bleeding him out here under the trees is a fine compromise.

The other Avengers are pulling fallen SHIELD agents out of the line of fire, checking pulses- finding a few, surprisingly; Tony is standing off to the side. He's no medic, he doesn't have the field training that Clint or Natasha or even Steve have, and he hates the awful numbness that's spilling through him. Hates it. He feels glued to the spot, lost, angry, hollow, dead. A thousand thoughts spider outward through his brain, connecting, dissolving, and he's shaking a little, now, wondering what the fuck is happening to him that he can't DO something. Anything. Help. Run. Scream. Shoot someone. Who? Loki, he supposes. In retrospect this shit is entirely expected and it's a wonder it didn't happen sooner.

Hogun's gaining some ground against Loki, bringing the flat of his blade at a hard angle into Loki's side in a brutal swing that would have shattered a human's ribs to kindling; he turns the weapon to slice into leathers, opening pale skin beneath and spilling still more red out onto the snow. It is not enough to stop Loki from turning to slash Fandral across the face with a silver dagger that appears from nowhere as the Aesir warrior attempts to take him unawares.

Hogun tears his blade from Loki's side, and the God of Mischief (and, at this point, probably  _Patron Saint of Shithouse Rats_  everywhere) snarls in pain and staggers back. Sif comes charging from behind Hogun, her sword drawn above her head as she leaps, ready to bring the wicked metal through Loki's skull. Loki snarls, swings into motion, and manages to land a powerful blow to her chest in the most ridiculously elegant variation on a butterfly kick Tony's ever seen, sending the warrior into a nearby tree and managing to land in a staggered, spilled crouch out of range of Hogun and Fandral.

  
"I  _need_  that," Natasha remarks dryly from her position above a coughing SHIELD agent. She glances at a slightly horrified Captain America. "What? That was a really  _nice_  kick."  Natasha's remarkable talent at inappropriate understatements astounds even Tony, sometimes. 

Sif lands with a hard groan, her sword knocked from her hand. She immediately dives towards it, bringing it up as she staggers to her feet, growling curses at Loki, her eyes flashing an anger that makes the Hulk look downright rational.

Loki's attention is entirely on Sif, and when he speaks his voice is an ugly, low hiss. "You fawning little  _beast._ I am going to strip the flesh from your wretched, worthless bones. I will take you apart in pieces, and I will do it so slowly that you forget what it's like to live without suffering."  Sif pales, her eyes widening, before her features school themselves to a more battle-ready determination.  Tony creeps closer, his heart pounding in his chest,  _fuck fuck fuck shit piss what the fuck am I doing fuck fuck shit this is stupid_  on loop in his head and on his lips, half-sketched words that lose their shape in the chilly air.

"You will try, God of Lies.  _You will try,"_ Sif snarls.

The awful, shattered-glass laugh from Loki's bloodied lips sends Tony's stomach twisting, the hairs along the back of his neck stand, and he freezes, realizing just how crap of an idea it is to be creeping closer to this  _madness_. It is in that moment that Volstagg appears, unseen, behind the smaller god. His hands are wrapped around his ax, and he swings.

Thor shouts, but Tony is there first, and holy shit it's  _pure luck_  that Volstagg pulls that terrifying war ax up short so quickly, desperate to avoid crushing the idiot standing between him and his target, his eyes wide, fixed on the mortal man in his crimson and gold armor. " _Have you a death wish, mortal fool_?"

"Man of Iron,  _what are you doing?"_  Thor's booming voice is cut through with bewilderment. The god is moving forward, slowly, one hand out, as if Loki is a spooked animal (he is) that could eat his friend if Thor gets too close too quickly. Volstagg takes a step back, dropping his ax to his side, giving Tony a look like he's entirely unsure of what to do with him.  

Tony pops his faceplate up just as Loki turns to look at him, the god's expression a mystery behind the blood and the skin-crawling intensity of his wild eyes. A smile twists Loki's thin lips, and he lashes out, fingers digging into the right shoulder of Tony's suit before he has a chance to say a word. Tony's eyes widen, and there's a moment when he totally forgets all the bullshit he was going to try to say, forgets why the fuck he's even there at all.

"You..." he hisses, and Tony wonders if Loki's just forgot everything between them, because there is  _nothing_ there he recognizes, nothing, and it's like he's staring at a monster, at the thing under beds and in dark hallways and cellars, at all the bad ideas and horror stories he was ever told, and there is no way out now, no way to back away, and his suit is crushing into his shoulder, and it  _hurts_  goddamn it, this was an awful idea... Loki's hand moves from Tony's shoulder and he rips the faceplate away from Tony's helmet as if it were made of paper. He holds it up to the moonlight, turning it this way and that, considering. 

“Please," Tony manages to grind out, soft, pleading, simple. "Please."  _Please don't tear me to pieces. Please don't fuck up my suit any more. I have a feeling I'm gonna need it._  
  
Loki’s eyes narrow, and his head cocks to the left, his lips part, and the words that come out are words that Tony does not comprehend at all. 

It is then that Tony Stark and Loki Laufeyson disappear in a roil of smoke, leaving only footprints and Tony's discarded faceplate in the snow.  
  


 


	9. We're spinning in his grip.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Iron Man is not... well, Director, he's gone."

It's the dulcet tones of an angry SHIELD director that shatter the stunned silence that Loki leaves in wake of their disappearance.

"There had b _etter_  be a stellar fucking reason that Iron Man is off the grid," Nick Fury's voice is an angry leopard snarling into everyone's comlinks, a sound that would probably succeed in terrifying generations of children for the rest of their lives. Steve, of course, is the first one to answer to the static hiss, his voice solemn, edged in distance; his words are slow and careful.

"Iron Man is not... well, Director, he's  _gone."_  The Captain kneels in the snow, reaching with fingers that do not tremble (because Steve's a soldier, damn it, and this is not his first rodeo) for Tony's broken faceplate, the red and gold reflecting dully in the moonlight filtering through from above. His eyes have gone wide and a lump is growing in his throat, an awful bitterness that threatens to spill out and Steve Rogers knows that now is not the time to panic, or to mourn. This is, after all, Tony Stark. Iron Man. The man who fought his way out of a cave in Afghanistan, using his wits and scrap metal and that manic never-give-up-never-give-in attitude. Tony's a lot of things, but the one thing he's not is  _helpless_. It's a thing Steve is aware of. A thing he's known since he watched the Iron Man suit come plummeting back to earth from a hole in space. The idea that this is a  _lie_ , that this is  _platitude_ , that Tony is somewhere trapped with a psychopath who has just killed several people, who crushed the Iron Man suit that made him  _super_ as if it were paper... that idea is too much to bear right now. "Loki took him, sir. He intervened in the situation with the Asgardians and Loki teleported away with Tony as a hostage. He was alive when they left. I want to assume that he still is and that our next duty is getting him back in one piece."

"That's an assumption I can work with, Captain," Fury replies, sounding as if he's trying very hard not to yell again. The silence that follows falls heavy on all of them, near crushing in the cold of the clearing. Everything smells of ice and blood, clean and dead, and the combination is stomach turning now.

Thor paces behind Steve, face ashen. "My friends," he says quietly, turning to the Warriors and Sif. "You must return to Asgard. There is nothing more for you to do, here," and each word is said so carefully that it's like it's someone else using Thor's voice. "I must assist the Avengers in finding our brother in arms. I feel that your presence here will only force Loki's hand if... if it has not, already. Please understand the delicacy of the situation."

Fandral is the first to respond, and gives a nod of agreement. "We will return and alert the All-Father, Thor."  _that his errant son has taken a Midgardian hostage_ , the unfinished sentence goes.

"Understood, but it must be known that I do not wish to have Asgardian assistance on this matter. It may force Loki's hand, and getting Tony Stark back alive is more important in this moment then apprehending my brother." Hogun gives a sound that could be disagreement, but Thor ignores it, his mind falling back in the moments before his brother's disappearance. The strange look on Loki's face when he'd torn the faceplate off the Iron Man suit... it had chilled Thor to his marrow, and he could not place  _why_ those last moments had unfolded the way they had; he feltas though he were missing something vital from the exchange, something to explain Tony's ridiculous bid to save Loki's life, and Loki's curious reaction to it. By all means, Tony Stark should be laying crumpled and bleeding in the snow now.

Sif places a hand on Thor's arm, pulling him from his thoughts, a frown hardening the lines of her face. "We will send word if we learn anything that could assist you, Thor. I am sorry that this... that this has gone so badly. It was not our intent. Loki..."

"I know full well what your intent was, and I know also my brother's, Sif." Thor places a large hand over Sif's, and gives her a nod. "I will speak with you soon."

In moments, the other Asgardians are gone, disappearing into the darkness of the forest surrounding the clearing; the Bifrost was not even half functioning at the moment; Thor did not want to guess the effort it had taken to get the Warriors here, and back, and he did not know where they'd arrived or where they'd be leaving from. Odin would assuredly  _not_  be pleased that they were returning empty-handed, but he'd rather them return as such than with his brother's corpse, and that had very much been a real possibility before everything had unraveled. Before Tony had stepped in, and played the hero ( _the fool, more like_ ) that everyone had accused him of being incapable of being.

Tony Stark was  _not_  the Warriors Three. He was not Thor. He was absolutely no match for Loki on a  _good_  day, and today... today was not a good day. Today had been terrible, and more than anything Thor wants something to fight, a tangible presence in the clearing to take his feelings out on _._ He wants desperately to forget that the broken bodies and the blood in bright red spatters across everything, that these things are his brother's doing, but the piece of metal in Steve's hand refuses to let him pretend. Loki was capable of terrible violence when cornered; when tricks and mischief wore thin and he found he could no longer charm his way out... it was like cornering a feral cat. A feral cat that had gone more than a little crazy from falling through space. The analogy brought a bitter smile to Thor's grim face; he turned to the rest of his team and cleared his throat before speaking.

"We must find my brother. We must find him  _quickly_. I fear for Tony's life."

"We all do," Natasha's voice is calm, and she moves easily between Steve and Thor, taking the faceplate from Steve's hand and turning it in the light. Her eyes narrow, and she turns to Thor. "What are the chances that Loki would kill him immediately, Thor? Do you think it's more likely he'd use him as a hostage?"

"I cannot say, Lady Natasha," Thor replies sadly, scrubbing a hand across his face in frustration. "I would like to think that my brother would not kill the Man of Iron, as he obviously... as it would have appeared that Stark tried to save his life. Loki is unpredictable, and dangerous when threatened, and this..."

"So Stark's fucking dead already," Clint growls darkly. "All because his stupid ass wanted to play hero."

"We're all playing hero," Steve reminds him quietly. "It's what we  _do_ , Barton."

"If you're all done frolicking in the snow," Fury's voice crackles, "Someone needs to get back here and talk to Banner before he gets any more upset about his  _science pal_  skedaddling off into outer goddamn space or elfland or wherever the fuck that horned bastard took him. The last goddamn thing we need right now is a Hulk smashing through upstate New York." 

"And I was thinking," Clint remarks, "That this night couldn't get worse."

"It's not  _worse_  yet. It's still Banner. I consider that  _not worse,"_  Steve remarks. "Let's get back. If anyone can help us find where they are, it's Bruce."

 

\----

 

The look on Bruce Banner's face is one that Natasha has seen before, and that's exactly the reason why she is standing closest to the door of the SHIELD laboratory that they are in, hand resting lightly over her gun,  _just in case._ It was the closest thing Natasha Romanov had to a security blanket.

Bruce sees her look; it registers, and it makes him put forth the effort to calm down as he strides nervously back and forth, hands behind his back, at his sides, in the air, scrabbling for a pen; he can't seem to sit still and it is terribly unlike him. He hates the feeling. It makes him on edge; makes things dangerous, and he doesn't blame Natasha for her fear. She knew. The others are looking nervous, too, but Fury is still talking to Bruce like there's nothing to worry about, because that's how Nick Fury did things.

"So there's a good chance," Bruce forces out, "There's a good chance he is alive, and that somehow, we can find him, and that this will have a happy ending. Sort of."

"Yes," Thor replies, stepping forward. "I assure you, Bruce. I am worried for Tony's safety, but... the chances are good that we will find him alive, if perhaps a little, well." he waves a hand about, indicating a less-than-mint-condition Tony Stark. 

"How are we going to find them? If they're not on Earth, I don't see how I can be of any help at all."

"This is true, my friend, but I do not think they will have left this realm. Surely there are some sort of tracking devices in Stark's equipment? It seems a thing he would find prudent, does it not?" Thor asks, surprising Bruce, who arcs an eyebrow and slows his pacing.

"I'm sure there is something, but it's not here. We'll have to get back to the mansion, and go through his things. Ask JARVIS."

"Knowing Tony it's locked down with ridiculous passwords," Steve muses, shaking his head. 

"I have some of those ridiculous passwords," Bruce replies evenly. "And if his tracking program is online, if link to his suit isn't destroyed, we stand a chance. The only other suggestion I have is an attempt to scan for Loki's energy signature, which we do not have a full work up of yet."

"How would you get such a thing? Do you need Loki himself, or would something that he has made be enough?" Thor asks. "Because if it is indeed the latter, then I could perhaps be of use to you and your science, should I be able to get back to Asgard and return in enough time."

"You have a stash of his things just lying around?" Clint asks. "Does he just have piles of weird, evil shit hanging out back home?"

"Not precisely," Thor answers. "But he does still have rooms in the palace, and those rooms contain his books and some of his spell works."

"I'm not sure if that would work. There's a good chance it would, if it were his magic and his alone powering it. As it is, I just don't have enough information to know what energy signature is which. My specialty doesn't exactly lend itself to Asgardian magic."

"We'll make it work," Natasha replies, pushing off the doorway. "We'll make it work because we  _have_  to, and because we've worked with a hell of a lot less."

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! Finally an update! I feel a wee guilty for this being as late as it is... it's also the first chapter that was officially beta'd... twice. Shout outs to whatthewatergaveme and fatdanny for helping me through this shit, and for ms-romanov for some pep talks and advice. I needed it. This was tough.
> 
> And I know it's short, but this was totally needed to set up my evil plan. Just you wait. Just you see.
> 
> Come join my cult on tumblr. The more souls I feed upon, the more smut I can write. That's right, I'm fueled by the power of your loins. er. Minds. Something.


	10. My table's broke, not turning. My skin is crawling, burning...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I didn't want you to die," Tony replies, swallowing hard because it's getting a little difficult to breathe, even without the hyperventilation that's happening at the moment.
> 
> "Charming," Loki's lips are on his ear, now, and the hand at his throat releases its hold a fraction. "I've tasted so much blood tonight, Tony Stark. I want, more than anything, to taste yours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not for the faint of heart.

 

Tony is surrounded in the creepiest, tripped-out magic shit for what seems like forever  _and_  not long at all, spinning, moving sideways, lurching inward- it's the weirdest feeling he's ever experienced in his life and Tony Stark is an expert at weird situations. His skin is hot and then it's cold, and everything is tingling strange and it's as if there are hands playing around in his insides where hands just shouldn't be. Seconds into the sensory overload Tony meets a stone floor ass first ( _thank god for small miracles; scratch that because it's a god that got him here in the first place, damn it_ ) and he's unceremoniously dumped into a strange room.

The room is very  _dim_ , and Tony realizes after a moment's glance that the only light in the room or whatever the hell it is comes from candles; lots of candles, and that's  _really_ cliche and he almost says so, until he remembers that the crouched figure on the other side of his bent knees is Loki, and Loki, for lack of a better term, has gone fucking  _insane._

Tony swallows down the bile that crawls up his throat; it burns as it slides back down and he gives a ragged cough. The air between them hums with tension, actors at the beginning of a scene, and Tony recoils, scooting backwards on his ass and holding out one gauntleted hand, as if anything on his suit  would really stop the god huddled in front of him from tearing him to pieces. It was a little unbelievable, really, that a few days ago he'd had his hands in Loki's now blood-slicked hair, had run his tongue along that sharp jaw, had lost himself inside of the god, had melted away around him, the whole time smug in the belief that he was  _safe_ , or at the very least  _safe enough_ , safe enough that his initial fear had faded after that first mind-blowing encounter, had slipped into the back of his mind because Loki  _hadn't_ hurt him, even in the park, Loki  _hadn't_ torn him to pieces, hadn't done  _anything_ that could have been construed as threatening or dangerous...

The look in those terrible green eyes turns Tony's bowels to ice. The ragged, wild desperation of the forest was gone; a very singular, deadly  _fascination is_  left, the kind of look at cat got upon seeing a fish in a very small, very shallow bowl. "Loki," he gasps, licking his parched lips, "Loki. Hey. Loki. Anyone home? I'm not dangerous. Remember? I..."

The god closes the space between them in a boneless spill of movement, unearthly, graceful and terrifyingly fast. This time it's not sensual at all; not when every muscle in the Asgardian's body seems dedicated to bringing him closer to Tony so that he can  _eat_  him, now, not fuck him, not... Loki bares his teeth in an inhuman snarl and that's when Tony lets out one of the girliest sounds he's ever made in his life and scuttles backward again, his suit awkward as all hell on the stone, and he feels trapped and panicked and this is probably, Tony realizes, when he's going to die. 

Loki's hand wraps around his ankle and drags him forward; Tony yelps again and flails out with a kick that misses its target entirely. With an awful, gut-wrenching crunch, Tony's chest plate is peeled off of him and away from his suit with nimble, powerful fingers, fingers that are denting the goddamn metal like it's paper. He remembers his faceplate, left in the forest, and winces. Hands snatch away the plates holding the arms of the Iron Man suit together, and he is scrabbling backward again, stammering nonsense at the terrifying creature that is silently ripping his only protection away from him as if it were little more than casually unwrapping a piece of candy. 

Every piece hits the floor with a metallic clink, crunch, or smash; it all blends together and it's all happening so fucking quickly; Tony thinks  _he's better at this than Jarvis_ , but really, he's not, because Jarvis didn't leave thousands of dollars worth of suit crumpled like wads of paper around a trashcan, forgotten words, forgotten.... Tony realizes he's having a panic attack right about the time Loki pulls away the last piece of suit- the left gauntlet because Tony's been flailing at him ridiculously with that hand and Tony throws his arms in front of him, crossing them over his face and huddling in on himself, screaming, all attempts at calm or rational defense gone. " _ **LOKILOKISTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPPLEASEPLEASEGODPLEASESTOPLOKINONONO....**_ " 

The panic doesn't stop when those terribly strong fingers wrap around his wrists and effortlessly force him down against the floor. He's staring wide-eyed up into Loki's blood-spattered face, and when Loki's mouth splits in a crooked grin he thinks he's going to pass right the fuck out, because it would probably just be  _easier_  to be unconscious when he died. "You're so terribly  _afraid_  of me," Loki whispers, licking blood off his own lips, "I can  _taste_  it, Stark, I can  _feel_  it humming along my skin... I could take you to pieces right now, and there is nothing at all you could do to stop me," his voice is velvet against the iron of his grip, and the contrast is only terrifying now; Tony kicks his brain and his libido for ever thinking this shit was  _hot_  because Jesus Christ, he's about to die, all because he thought he was  _helping_  someone, all because he got wasted and thought maybe, just maybe, fucking the God of Chaos would be a really fantastic idea.

"Please don't," Tony replies, and his voice is so goddamn tight he thinks he's going to choke on the words. "Please, please don't."

" _Please don't,"_  Loki mocks, a sneer crawling across his features, "You've forgotten your words again, Stark. All that wit, all that bravado, dried up and turned to ash. Is this all that it takes to destroy a hero? Weave a spell and break a few  _toys_?" 

Tony's not sure if he means the suit or the dead agents or maybe the bastard means  _both_. He swallows hard and says, "I was trying to stop him. The big one. I didn't..."

There's a pale hand around his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut and curls his hands into fists; his arms are stretched above his head now, held in place easily by Loki's other hand. The god doesn't look the slightest bit inconvenienced by the hold, he certainly isn't off balance because he's  _bigger_  than Tony. Loki brings his face close to Tony's; his lips brush Tony's cheek and Tony shudders at the mockery of intimacy. "I know what you were doing," that cultured voice purrs, "Foolish mortal."

"I didn't want you to die," Tony replies, swallowing hard because it's getting a little difficult to breathe, even without the hyperventilation that's happening at the moment.

"Charming," Loki's lips are on his ear, now, and the hand at his throat releases its hold a fraction. "I've tasted so  _much_  blood tonight, Tony Stark. I want, more than anything, to taste  _yours_ _._ I can hear it rushing just beneath your skin, now... and I feel no need to resist the temptation. _"_  There are teeth at the junction of Tony's neck and shoulder, just above the now-torn edge of his bodysuit; the teeth close around unprotected flesh and it's a sharp, deep bite. All the adrenaline left in Tony's body runs haywire and he cries out, struggling against the press of the Asgardian's body and those goddamn fingers around his wrists; he bucks and writhes and finally realizes as the panic at the pain begins to ebb and acceptance starts to float through him that one of his wrists just might be fractured, and he lies still then, panting, sucking in breath after breath. 

When Loki pulls away, there's blood on his mouth again, and it's Tony's, now, fresh and bright and the inventor's shoulder creeps wet and warm, drips along his arm and down to the floor; it soaks into the bodysuit, invisible against the dark fabric. Loki laughs, high and wild, the sound echoing through the room like shards from a shattered glass and Tony realizes with a start that the crazy fucker is still wearing that ridiculous fucking helmet and it's just too much. It's  _too much_ to deal with _._  "I don't want to die like this," he grinds out through his grit teeth, "I really don't, please don't let me die under a fucking lunatic god in a goddamn dungeon  _this is a fucking fantasy game come to life_  can I PLEASE get a reroll here..."

He's cut off abruptly by Loki's mouth on his, a crushing press of lips that brings with it teeth and tongue; it is sharp and harsh and overwhelming; he tastes his own blood on Loki's tongue, copper and salty-sweet. His heart does a strange little flip and so does his stomach, and Loki's  _not_  breaking away from the kiss. It's a moment where Tony's actually worried that Loki's going to eat him from the mouth down; the hand around his wrist tightens and he whimpers. Loki groans in response, and bites Tony's bottom lip. His free hand is tearing through the bodysuit just as easily as it tore through the Iron Man suit, and there are fingers dragging down his chest, nails leaving welts; blood beading on his skin, mingling with sweat and dirt. Tony's almost reached the edge of all the panic left in him, and he feels his senses do a strange little dance with bleary acceptance, as if his brain found a stash of scotch somewhere and decided  _fuck it, I don't need to be here for this anyway._

"I could take you to the very  _edge_ , little savior," Loki breathes, and Tony can taste the promise in those words. "I could drag you over that edge into oceans of bliss and pain, and you'd _never_  know the difference between the two. I could kill you in the throes of climax and you would die thanking me, begging me for all I had to give until the very last drop was spilled and you were nothing but spent flesh upon this floor. I have done you _such_  a kindness, all this time, playing your pet, giving you everything you wanted of me, and taking so very  _little_  in return." Loki's mouth brushes the bite on Tony's shoulder, and his tongue laps idly at the blood there; each touch is a shock of pain that is melting into something different, and Tony can't decide what he hates more; the pain or the strange warmth spreading through him. 

Shock. It has to be.

"I don't want to die," Tony repeats. "I'll... whatever else. I don't..." not here. Not like this. Not after everything that he's been through, he is not dying by fuck buddy, because that's what all of this madness boils down to and just  _no_  because that would prove far too many people right about him, and Tony fucking hates proving other people right.

"You've  _earned_  death, with every mistake you've made, with every choice in  _this_. There are those in Asgard who'd scream for your head for aiding me," Loki's words creep through Tony's ears, softer, now, his rich voice playing along his skin in strange ways; at the very least he's not crushing Tony's fucking wrist anymore; it's a small mercy but Tony takes it. 

"From you, though?" he asks softly. "Is it what I've earned from  _you_? I never took anything you didn't want to give. I gave you  _shelter_. I didn't ask for anything that night. I didn't know I  _wanted_  anything that night. I know you... I know you can tell a lie from the truth. You  _know_  I'm not lying to you, you know... I didn't  _think_ , okay? I didn't think I just didn't want you to  _die_ , goddamn it. Even though you've fucked everything up, even after all of the truly  _awful_  things you've done, Loki, you murdered my friend and ruined my city and threw me out a window and threatened my friends and my goddamn planet...   _I don't want you to die_. I don't. And I don't want you to kill me, because if you kill me I'm going to look like a fucking idiot, okay? Please."

Tony is a bloody, bruised, broken mess against old, worn stone; the flickering candlelight that bathes them in soft shadows casts his face in hard angles, in darker shadows, playing over the blood smeared on his cheek, the gleaming of tears he'll deny forever threatening to fall because Christ he's terrified that  _reason's_  not going to work, that nothing is going to work, and he hasn't felt this helpless since that god forsaken cave, lifetimes ago.

Loki cocks his head and laughs. "I won't kill you, my little tin man. When I am through, however, you'll wish that I did." They meld in another soul-searing kiss, and Tony is surprised when he can bring his hands up to Loki's face, his fingertips trailing along the high edge of the god's cheekbones, and he's rationalizing it because if he fights, Loki's going to kill him, and that means this is guilt-free, there's nothing to feel ashamed or horrified about and it's not at all a sign of something wrong with Tony's brain. He rests his hands on Loki's shoulders, winces at the pain in his wrist at the movement, and forgets it again because Loki is grinding against him, and even in the armor and the leathers it's fucking hot; and it's not like Tony's wearing much of anything at all. He feels... exposed, vulnerable, so very small, and it's all limned in fear, in the fluttering beat of his heart, in the tremor in his hands, the sweat on his palms, the roiling in his gut when Loki leans back and stares down at him, eyes so  _dark_  and predatory, and any moment, any moment he expects a howl, or maybe a flash of fangs... some proof of the illusion of humanity stripped away from the god he'd naively called  _lover_. 

Loki's hips meet his, and he twists, rolling against Tony, and there's got to be magic in this somewhere, too, because the fear isn't going away but desire howls through Tony in a raging storm of want and need and  _please, yes I would die for this_ , and Loki's hand is in his hair, painfully tight, and they meet in another kiss, Loki trailing down to the burning ache at Tony's throat, and he breathes against it. It's like ice creeps through Tony's blood, branching out beneath his skin, and he's not sure if it hurts or not. He shivers under Loki's touch, under the trail of cool lips, cooler hands, stripping away the remnants of the body suit as he lays trembling on the floor. It's the only time in his life Tony wishes for something to hide beneath; naked under Loki is just too much to deal with, and his blood is still seeping from his skin in a slow drip; the scent of it clings to the back of his throat and he fights the urge to gag again; fear climbs through him in a fresh arc when Loki's nimble fingers slide beneath his skin at his hips, the wounds opening so quickly it takes a moment for Tony's body to react to them, to react to the utterly alien sensation; he screams and Loki's mouth takes the sound away, and Tony is crushed between horrifying pain and body-bending lust and he howls again into Loki's mouth, and there is a tongue in his mouth, sliding along his, coaxing the terror from him, reveling in it, and those bloody fingers are brushing so lightly, so carefully along his ribs, easing back down, soothing over the searing pain, and it's cold again, cold, cold, the metallic tang of blood is everywhere but the pain's receding, just a little, bit by bit and Tony shudders and twitches because the sensation of his skin reknitting itself so quickly is just  _weird._

He realizes, then, just what Loki meant when he said he'd wish he was dead.

 

Loki doesn't bother to silence the next scream that he rips from Tony's throat.

 

 

 

 

_  
_


	11. This is as good a place to fall as any, we will build our altar here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because I can. Because I must. Because all I am is this, in the end," he says, and splays his hands out on either side of the arc reactor.
> 
> "No, you aren't," Tony replies softly. "You're more. If all you were was crazy this would have happened a hell of a lot sooner, goddamn it."
> 
> "You have a lot of faith in a man you claimed as your enemy," the god muses.
> 
> "I have a lot of faith in a man I call my lover," Tony replies.
> 
> "You poor fool," Loki answers.

"Shhhh, little savior," Loki purrs, and his voice is wicked, slow, and thick as honey as he presses a long, bloodied index finger to Tony's trembling lips, cocking his head to watch Tony's face disappear under a mask of confused, panicked pain. Tony's not screaming now, but that means nothing; his heart is pounding in his chest, a terrified rabbit trying desperately to find a way past the snake looming in its burrow. Loki strokes the man's cheek lightly, enjoying the shuddering gasp that breaks free from Tony's throat; the sound is dry, harsh, crawling toward exhaustion. It is as if they've been trapped  _for ages_  in this moment, in the bright, shining grip of fear, submission, and pain- pain not borne at Loki's expense. 

The exchange is entirely at his command, this trembling body beneath him, the fragile mortal and his rabbit heart, its humming mechanical aide and those wide, wide brown eyes staring up at him, a silent plea of  _why why why why why_  trapped on loop. Loki cuts his gaze away from their demand;  _because I can_ is simple enough to grasp, and should need no explanation. He licks his lips, and then his bloodied fingertips, savoring the electric aftertaste that he files away as a side effect of the contraption glowing blue-white in the inventor's chest. He is tempted now to pry the arc reactor out of its resting place, just to  _see_ , to  _know,_ to  _take._ Loki is reminded as his quick fingers scrabble around the edges, as Tony's hands come up, shaking and desperate, pushing weakly at his wrists, that to do so would bring about the end of this, and at last he answers Tony's question aloud. "Because I can. Because I must. Because all I am is  _this_ , in the end," he says, and splays his hands out on either side of the arc reactor.

"No, you aren't," Tony replies softly. "You're more. If all you were was  _crazy_  this would have happened a hell of a lot  _sooner_ , goddamn it."

"You have a lot of faith in a man you claimed as your enemy," the god muses.

"I have a lot of faith in a man I call my lover," Tony replies.

" _You poor fool_ ," Loki answers, shaking his head, leaning down to press a kiss to Tony's forehead, across his eyelids and finally his mouth, Tony's blood mingling between them. Loki steadies himself with a hand pressed flat on the ground above Tony's left shoulder, his other lacing fingers through Tony's thick brown hair. "You poor, poor fool," Loki breathes again, and Tony's shaking hands are sliding up his arms, to his shoulders, along the pale column of Loki's neck, resting his thumbs on Loki's cheeks, his hands cradling the god's battle helmet.

"Off with the death helmet," Tony's voice is tight; Loki finds the request amusing enough that he acquiesces; and after that Tony's pulling, pushing, fumbling at Loki's armor, and the god gives a sharp laugh against his mouth, biting his lower lip and earning a moan and a writhing arch of the other man's hips against his thighs. 

It would be  _so easy_ , so easy to wrap his hands around that fragile throat and squeeze, it would... he closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath, calming his own heart, the near-blinding need to unmake, to revel in power and terror. When he opens his eyes again Tony is staring up at him, and that gods-damned  _look_  is back, and he curls his fingers into fists; Tony flinches and Loki pounces, teeth at his throat, sharp, hard,  _vicious_ , and Tony's fingers find no purchase against armor and leather and he howls again, and all Loki can hear is that pounding frantic heart, the sucking intake of breath, all the music of cornered prey and he wants, oh, he  _wants_ , and it is so very much that it's as if his skin is crawling tight, hot, and cold and his hand is on Tony's fragile throat then, cutting off those ragged gasps, in-out, in-out, struggling, struggling, and the hands scrabbling at his grip mean  _nothing_.

"Tell me this is what you want," Loki hisses, tongue sliding along the shell of Tony's ear, "Tell me you want  _this_  or I will..."  _I will tear you apart_ , the words hang between them unsaid, but Tony hears them all the same, and the expression that flies across his face is a mixture of so many thoughts warring with one another that even Loki cannot piece it together in its entirety. 

"Yes," Tony whispers, because it's better than death, it has to be, because he refuses, absolutely  _refuses_  to take an easy way out of anything, ever, and if anyone could understand that, it would be the Norse god astride him. 

"Yes?" Loki repeats, softly, nipping at Tony's shoulder, teeth grazing his collar bone, tongue following as if to soothe away the bruises left before. 

"Yes, Loki," Tony nods, closes his eyes, and it's as if he's jumped off a cliff without a rope, free fall in wide open blue space, and it's honestly perhaps one of the bravest things Loki has seen a mortal do in centuries.

"You continue to surprise me, my little inventor," Loki purrs, nipping at the pulse in Tony's throat, fighting the impulse to tear it out. The hand in Tony's hair unwinds, and he wraps it around Tony's shoulder, moving to turn him over, and Tony shakes his head.

"Look, if this is might be my very last fuck, I'd really like to be able to _see_  it, okay?" 

Loki does not deign to answer; he is crawling bonelessly down Tony's body, fingers trailing feather-soft over the bruises that are blossoming beneath Tony's skin, quick tongue licking away sweat, tasting  _him_ and the remnants of the magic that brought them here, the copper tang of blood, and the spice of desire unfurling beneath it all, spreading, warring with panic and setting it aside. It was  _power_  building between them, and Loki was never one to turn his attention from such a thing. He buried teeth in the flat planes of Tony's stomach, easing some of the energy out across the man's skin, and Tony responded with a sharp gasp, back bowing, arching up from the ground, and Loki moved lower, laying a soft trail of kisses to mingle with the sharp bite of teeth, the press of fingers, the whispered words that Tony could not hope to comprehend. Bloodlust was fading, mingling with a simpler need to be inside of the other man, to claim him  _here_  in this sacred place as  _his,_ as if stealing him away hadn't been enough, as if offering himself hadn't been sufficient; and of course it hadn't. Loki never had been satisfied with  _half way_ or  _almost_ , should have known...  _had_  known that from the very start of this, even if Stark himself had not. 

He didn't bother to undress; it would have taken more time than he was willing to spend and would imply a sort of concern that Loki could not bring himself to feel in the moment; he unlaced his pants instead, flashing a feral smile as Tony's eyebrows shot upward. "This is unexpectedly hot and terrifying," Tony's babbling,  "the armor, I mean, wow. Yeah, filing this away," he's continuing on and Loki growls, silencing him with a deep, probing kiss before summoning a small vial of oil from beyond the view offered by the circle of flickering candles. The amber glass is smooth and almost hot against his palm.

"Sexy," Tony remarks.

"A better lubricant than blood, I find, regardless of the interesting implications therein." Loki moved to spread Tony's legs, settling his weight on his knees between them, casually smoothing a hand along Tony's bare thigh, the other hand easily popping the top on the vial in its grip.

"And I'm terrified again, thanks," Tony quips before giving a startled cry at the feel of oil-slicked fingers easing inside of him. He catches his breath, and reaches up to wrap a hand in Loki's tangled black hair.  There was a soft clink as the vial hit the stone floor, and Loki nuzzles against Tony's hand, nipping at his wrist.

"This," Loki purred, "is going to  _hurt_ , Stark, and I feel absolutely  _no_  remorse about that." 

"I wouldn't expect remorse from you."

"Perhaps you've been paying attention, after all," Loki mused, drawing the other man closer.

Gods help him, Tony  _came_  to him, wrapped his hands around Loki's forearms as the god eased inside, deceptively slow, reveling in the tight heat of the other man, in the shudder and tremble of the fragile mortal frame wrapped around his, in the race of his lover's heart, in the rush of the battle before and the missed promise of the violence that could have been and  _might_  still be, in Tony's shameless negotiations for his own survival, in the need in those brown eyes as they locked on his own, fear still so heavy and dark behind the growing pleasure. He bent over the smaller man, fitting in a better-suited angle, and Tony wrapped his legs around Loki's narrow hips, his heels a weight at the small of Loki's back, tension thrumming through him, his body an instrument anxious to be played to whatever tune the god chose to pluck from him.

Loki sank into him, then, fire and ice and all the violence of the forest, the reminder that the man beneath him was indeed a man and mortal distant in his memory, and it was so terribly easy to let it  _go_ , to let his power flow between them like wine pouring into a cup, overflowing, sweet and bitter and refreshing and cold and burning all the lingering, heavy way down, soul deep and spreading. A relief, after posturing and playing at pet, at simple mischief and seduction. Sweet salvation after his panicked battle under the cold, indifferent moon. A compromise for Tony's foolish rush to save his life and the need to destroy anything that still saw something worthwhile in him.

He rolled Tony over like a wave enveloping a child's paper boat, sucking him under, and the man surrendered, gave of himself so readily that the lines of where he stopped and Loki began blurred and erased themselves, and there against the dusty stone, lit by the flicker of hundreds of candles and protected by ancient wards and circles upon circles they were simply  _one_ ; lost to desire, old magic, spilled blood, and terrible ideas.

The world spun crazily as he climaxed, his vision edging black as he arched into Tony, pounding the man into the unrelenting stone at his back, eliciting a high, wild cry from Tony's lips. His lover ( _prey,_ a voice hissed) howling Loki's name with such reverence that it shimmered  _sacred_  between them, power beyond desire; it struck deep and true and Loki let it spill through him. 

He knew, then, as the other man sprawled exhausted beneath him, eyes unfocused, cheeks red and skin gleaming sweat and smelling like sex, that he would answer that call ( _and wasn't he the only one to do so? When needed, hadn't he always been the one to come when all others had turned away?)_  no matter where or when it came, that he would move mountains and burn cities to the ground for it, for the thrill of something so terribly, tantalizingly close to  _worship._  "Damn you," he hissed, breathless, licking his swollen lips, rendered speechless beyond the curse because nothing he could say would be understood by the human beneath him. Tony reached up and flopped a hand lazily on Loki's upper arm, gliding along leather, as if he were memorizing the feel of it.

"I'm going to count this as a conflict resolution in my favor, because I still possess a working throat and I can feel my toes. Kind of. And no, that's not an invitation to kill me, okay?  _Not now_. Wow.  _Shit._ You fucked me _stupid_ , I think. Literally, I think my brain went on vacation... and you are  _fucking crazy,_ has anyone told you that? Of course you are. Hot and crazy go hand in-fucking-hand..."

"Silence." Loki pulled away from him, sitting back with his knees up and ankles crossed, one forearm draped across his knees and the other hand over his eyes, "This is not the moment to make me reconsider allowing you to live."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look. It's not even a cliff hanger. Sometimes I'm nice. 
> 
> And the tumblr is now "youcrashquimssaysfuckthepolice.tumblr.com" ... there's a story there, but it's long and stupid.
> 
> Also: thank you again to thisiswhatthewatergaveme for being a fucking bad ass, for giving advice, betaing, and being an enabler.


	12. So in love with the wrong world.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's ridiculous," Loki snorts, scowling. "You've done far worse."
> 
> "That was before," Tony snaps, crossing his arms and attempting confident since cute and imploring doesn't seem to be working. He is Tony goddamn Stark and if he wants to win an argument naked, he will win all of the arguments naked.
> 
> "Before? Did you suddenly grow a conscience, when you found yourself with your mechanical heart?" Loki asks, cocking his head. "Did you throw it away when I first came to you, then? Perhaps it ebbs and flows like the tides. I'm not entirely sure if it was with you when you so foolishly threw yourself in front of an axe for me. Saving the would-be conqueror of your realm is hardly considered heroic, not that I have qualms over it. We've made it clear enough that I do not."

Silence sprawls between them, creeping past like honey on a winter morning; Loki is unnaturally still, his head in his hand, oceans away. Tony is laying in the midst of torn, ridiculously high-tech fabric and broken, twisted metal. Another string of heartbeats and silence and he finally hauls himself to a sitting position, crossing his legs and resting his chin on one fist, his other hand splayed palm down on the floor at his side. The arc reactor is a blue-white beacon in the center of his blood-smeared chest. "Loki.  _Loki_. Over here."

The god gives a sigh that would have put Pepper Potts to shame, and fixes his gaze on Tony, his face a carefully blank mask behind the blood; it leaves him looking more like artwork than a creature capable of a conversation. It's unnerving as hell, and Tony  _knows_  Loki knows it's unnerving, so he decides not to give him the satisfaction of a visible reaction.

"Is it really hard," Tony asks instead, tracing a finger in the dust at his side, "To keep finding exciting new ways to be creepy? Because you're so  _good_  at it, I mean, you hit every note on that scale. I'm kind of in awe of that." When silence greets him, he presses on, cocking his head and leaning forward, flashing the Asgardian a curious look. "...Also, on an unrelated note, I feel a little...  _high_ , and I know for a fact that isn't on  _me_."

"I believe I asked for silence," Loki finally answers, narrowing his eyes. Each word is clipped, precise.

"You did; I heard that, but that was a good ten minutes ago, at least. Surely you've got your inner demons in check? I'd like to get the hell out of here, no offense. I need alone time. And alcohol. Maybe a good cry." Tony stretches gingerly, and mid-movement realizes that there's nothing to be careful about.  He isn't just high; he's  _healed_. "What in the fuck did you do to me? I mean,  _nothing hurts._  And I know I should be hurting. A lot. I should probably, actually be dying. Or at least, I should be kind of crippled, and instead, well. I'm..."  _tripping balls. Feeling like climbing the prow of the Titanic and acting like an asshole._

"It is complicated," Loki replies, after a long moment; in a spill of motion he is on his feet. "And it is nothing that would be of concern to a man of  _science._ " 

"You say that and all I hear is  _man of science would really like to know what the shit just went down._ "

"I am a  _god_ , Stark," Loki growls, walking away from the indignant pile of super hero on the floor and towards the far candle lit alcove. He drops gracefully to his knees there, hand passing slowly through the flickering tongues of yellow-orange flame, his expression unreadable, his face half-hidden in fluid shadow. 

"You keep saying that, yeah," Tony agrees, leaning forward. " _And_?"

"This is a place of power, and it is very much  _mine_ ," Loki explains, and there is a hint of something there at the edge of his voice, something Tony is damned sure he doesn't understand and probably doesn't  _want_ to understand because he's drawing a line in the sand at  _place of power._

"Why do I feel like I need to be quitting this entire conversation, if it's actually going to boil down to what I think you might be getting at. Because  _what in the shit_ ," Tony groans. "What in the shit."

"There is  _power_  in blood," Loki continues, ignoring Tony's protests, and he's got a whisper of that strange, fevered  _look_  in his green-glass eyes, and that  _something_  is there, invisible but heavy in the room, in the tension that holds those sharp, angular shoulders, in darkness like a glimpse of the cold black void Tony fell through seconds after the bomb blast, and fear whispers through the inventor, again, if only for a split second. Fear and a dawning sort of awe that he really just does not want to address, that is totally the fault of being human and not magic. "There is power in...  _flesh_." A crooked smile, a flash of teeth, and Tony swallows hard. "You  _wanted_ , little savior, despite everything. You were afraid you would die here, and you still  _wanted._  It was quite impossible to resist."  _And it saved your life_. 

"Victim blamer."

The look Loki cuts his way briefly makes Tony consider being turned on all over again. It shifts, and there's that  _I'm really fond of what you taste like on the inside_  expression, and Tony gives a heavy sigh. "Goddamn it, can you stop that for a minute?" 

"My humble apologies, Stark; it's been centuries since..." Loki trails off and closes his eyes; a long, lingering shiver slides its way down his spine, visible through that leather and gleaming, red-stained metal, and suddenly Tony wants to see him naked again, wants all those stolen secret moments back, here, now, because Loki is  _beautiful_ and terrible in the flickering light, eyes closed, head back, throat a perfect, pale line. Later Tony might acknowledge that Loki isn't wrong about  _power,_ because he can sense it, if only a little; later Tony might consider the  _reverence_  he feels, and he might even, in a drunken a-ha moment, put the two together and have some sort of crisis; but for now he clears his throat, glowers at his irresponsible libido, and asks,

"Since?"

Loki's eyes narrow and he gives Tony a glare. "I've said more than enough. Be content that you are alive and mostly in one piece. I assume that will be sufficient for your return."

"Almost, yeah. I mean... not that alive isn't good enough, or that I'm not grateful... we both know I am. Any day that I'm still alive at the end of, it's a decent day, you know? Especially this one, because it's been jam packed full of murder and the most violent... make up sex I've ever had, but...  _clothes would be nice_ ," Tony blathers, dragging himself to his feet and rocking back on his heels. He offers his very best  _I am so sad and helpless and pathetic so please do as I ask_  look. "I mean, a random, naked reappearance, while not unusual for me, is not going to go over so well after... how I left everyone else and while I  _might_  consider defending the fact that I'm fucking you at some point, right now is  _not_  the time for that discussion. Honestly, I feel like a terrible person because  _you murdered people and I still had sex with you."_ It feels even worse now that Loki's not sinking teeth in his shoulder, now that he isn't looking at him or sliding between his thighs or whispering positively filthy things into his ear while...  _think with your brain, goddamn it._

 _"_ That's ridiculous," Loki snorts, scowling. "You've done _far_  worse."

"That was  _before_ ," Tony snaps, crossing his arms and attempting confident since cute and imploring doesn't seem to be working. He is Tony goddamn Stark  _and if he wants to win an argument naked, he will win all of the arguments naked_.

"Before? Did you suddenly grow a conscience, when you found yourself with your mechanical heart?" Loki asks, cocking his head. "Did you throw it away when I first came to you, then? Perhaps it ebbs and flows like the tides. I'm not entirely sure if it was with you when you so foolishly threw yourself in front of an axe for me. Saving the would-be conqueror of your realm is hardly considered heroic, not that I have qualms over it. We've made it clear enough that I do not."

"You were ready to kill me for it, for a hot second back there," Tony remarked, "And I'm gonna admit right now, I wasn't actually expecting that."

"And yet, here you stand, alive."  There is something there, heavy and complicated and entirely above Tony's head again, and he's too tired to reach for it. Loki is  _looking_  at him like he sees something Tony doesn't, because no matter how handsome Tony is, he knows that isn't what has Loki's attention. He's vain- ridiculously so, he knows, and most of it's deserved, sure- but he's not _stupid_. 

"Fair enough," he concedes, hands up, and he takes a step back. "I'm alive. You're alive. I'm gonna leave it at that. Can I go home, my lord, oh creepy god of angst and inappropriate sexual relations? I'm starting to feel a need for a walk of shame. Right up to the nearest bottle of bourbon."

"I'd certainly hate to interfere in the war against your liver," Loki replies, waving a hand lazily in Tony's direction. There is a shimmer, a strange little creeping thrill like static and ice, and his armor's undersuit is no longer in tatters on the floor; it's wrapped in mostly one piece around Tony's body, torn here and there for effect, Tony assumes, and there is a sudden sharp sting across his left cheek. Loki is there, then, tilting Tony's head up to admire his handiwork. His finger tips come away with blood and Tony watches with more interest than is healthy as the fingertips disappear between Loki's lips. A flick of tongue, a pursing of his lips and they are clean again. "It wouldn't do to send you back entirely unscathed," Loki explains, and that damned _look_  is back, and he's leaning forward; that quick tongue finds Tony's and he isn't even surprised at the taste of his own blood. It doesn't matter at all anymore if it's normal or fucked up, because what it is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is really fucking sexy. 

"I..." Tony has no goddamn  _idea_  what he wants to say, and thank Christ he doesn't get a chance to say something stupid; that unnerving, sideways-every angle sensation is back and he is  _gone,_  maybe everywhere, maybe no where; the world's twisting, spiraling, shattering. There are colors he's never seen before and he closes his eyes to keep from being sick, because it's too much, and he'll never get used to this bullshit, the crawling under his skin, the ozone and the burning metal taste and  _this is what drugs do, kids, this is falling into fractal art and not knowing how to get back out_ , and when he opens his eyes again there is sunlight, bright and obnoxious and burning, and beneath his feet there's concrete, and he is  _home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the support I've gotten for this fic! I know that updates get sparse here and there, but bear with me- I'd rather take my time and make it not terrible so that people enjoy it.
> 
> Once again: thanks to thisiswhatthewatergaveme for help. I really need someone kicking me in the ass a little.


	13. I know it's madness to play these odds.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get Thor POV, some healthy speculation, and that bastard Tony turns up and tries to act like nothing fucking happened.
> 
> He fails, obviously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOO HOO LOOK I STILL MAKE WRITE.

Thor Odinson isn't stupid.

He's  _not stupid_  enough to be aware that a good many people consider him to be just that. At the very least, not very... fast on the uptake. And he understands that, especially the Midgardians he's come to know; their culture is not his own and some of it is confounding at first.

But Thor is not stupid, and Thor can, at times, be quite thoughtful.

He is thoughtful now, standing in a room on one of the laboratory levels in Stark tower, watching Steve Rogers' expression go from pensive, to worried, to pensive again, a never ending cycle fitting for the captain, when he feels the unmistakable, icy bitter wicked strange  _twist_  of his brother's magic. It certainly _isn't_  coming from the tome laid carefully upon the stainless steel lab bench in front of Bruce, who is hovering around it, fingers ghosting through the air, making notes on Tony's  _nearly-magic-but-not-magic-because-Tony Stark-hates-that-word_  tech, throwing out ideas to JARVIS as if he and the disembodied voice are old friends.

Thor  _knows_  what it means, and is caught between keeping silent and waiting, just to  _know,_ and interrupting hour five of Bruce's nonstop study of the hand written book that's had his attention since Thor brought it, triumphant, from Asgard. Loki's own crafting, from the carvings on the leather binding to the elegantly handwritten spells, the illustrations done with painstaking care. It is beautiful, and obviously well taken-care of. It hums with  _Loki,_ with memories of a better time, of a studious, clever, quick boy with raven-dark hair and flashing green eyes and a sharp, silver tongue. It hums and it receives the echoes of an answer and that is all he needs, because it doesn't take a sorcerer to understand what is happening.

A strange idea creeps into his mind, worries at him like a curious dog, and he bats it away, shakes it off. Harmless, he thinks. Remember harmless Loki, clever Loki, remember all those years ago, a Loki who would take  _pity_  on a mortal man, and not rend him to shreds as this fallen through the void Loki very well might have. No. The thoughts chase each other like Hati and Skoll after the moon and sun, vying for legitimacy, and Thor wishes in that moment that there was someone, anyone, anyone at all, that he could talk to about these things, who would understand what was, and what is, and what could possibly be, if only everything else would stop working  _against_  it.

"Are you having any luck with your science?" Thor asks, hoping his tone is light. Bruce looks up from the table, a tousled, greying curl of hair flopping down across his glasses and obscuring the slightly frazzled look Bruce shoots Thor's way. The words break Steve's concentration, too, and he spares a glance at Thor, offering a smile that does not reach his eyes.

"Yes, and no. Not really. I mean... I'm getting  _some_ measurable readings from it. I can see that there's obviously a very distinct energy signature ra... I can tell that it's Loki's, now that I know what it is that I'm looking for."

"That is good news, then. Surely we will have an answer soon."

"It _is_ , yes. Only... I'm still not sure that I can apply the information towards a tracking application in time, since I've  _absolutely no idea_  where to start looking. Add in that it's already been several hours since we last saw Tony. This is much more complex than my usual area of study, because I really have no framework for how this sort of energy is supposed to behave... in the wild, as it were. Wait. I have an idea." Bruce lapses back into talking to himself and to JARVIS, using words and phrases that neither Thor or the very, very silent Steve understand.

Thor and Steve have been the only two to stay in the laboratory for more than a few minutes at a time; the research only frustrates Clint, and Natasha appears here and again briefly, says nothing, and melts off again to talk to Pepper, who does not want to be anywhere near the book or any of the other artifacts Thor has managed to bring back for study. Pepper has been... many things in the hours Tony's been missing. Angry. Sad. Bitter. Cold. Upset. Quiet. Giddy. Thor's familiar with the wild oscillations of emotion; he's seen it many times in the faces of friends and family left behind when a warrior did not return home.

But Tony Stark  _will_  return home, because Loki  _must_  be near, and Loki would  _not_  expend the energy to simply discard bits and pieces of a fallen comrade, would he? Could his brother be that far gone? Surely not. No. Tony  _must_  be alive, and there is a reason, a very good reason, why he was taken in the first place- and an even better reason why the Man of Iron thought to leap in front of a blade to save his brother- would be conqueror, murderer, villain, from death. It would be explained in due time. Thor refused to believe that his brother's chaotic nature was entirely without  _purpose_.

"Yes! Excellent!" 

Thor is interrupted from his thoughts by a victorious Bruce, who is giving Steve an enthusiastic high five, as JARVIS has no hands to reciprocate. "I've got it.  _I've got it_. We're picking up readings right now, we're going to get a location... we need to get SHIELD on the line, we're going to need transport, maybe back up, a lot of backup, depending on the situation..."

"Hardly," comes JARVIS' voice, and Thor swears the unseen mechanical man is drier than even his brother in that moment. 

"What?" Bruce frowns, looks up, as if JARVIS were nestled in the tiles, snarking from above.

"I sincerely doubt you will need transport outside of that provided by an elevator and your own two feet, Doctor Banner, and you certainly will not require SHIELD's assistance. Tony Stark is on the premises, sir. Directly outside of it, to be precise. I have considered not allowing him access, but I assume you are all more than anxious to see him."

There is a mad rush for the door and Thor steps wisely to one side to allow Steve and Banner to exit the laboratory. 

 _Not as gone as you'd have me believe, brother,_  Thor thinks.

 

 

Natasha is there before all of them, somehow, standing just inside the entrance to Stark Tower, gun out and pointed in Tony's face; Thor doesn't have to be told that she assumes the man before them is not Tony at all. Natasha is a clever woman, and thinks more in line with his brother than anyone else he's ever met. 

"Jesus  _Christ_ ," Tony's voice is sharp and sudden and obnoxious; he grins from around Natasha's gun barrel and slips beneath her, into the foyer, eyes fever bright, cheek bloody, a ring of bruises around his neck. His sleek black under armor is torn, but it's nothing major, nothing life threatening in the gaps of flesh beneath high-tech fabric, and he is a flurry of hands and arms and motion and it is overwhelming to watch him move. There's something off in it, and Thor is reminded of his brother's posturing when they were much younger, and he'd been beaten by groups of not-impressed-with-his-tricks peers. As if the bruises meant absolutely nothing; anything to distract from the very real fact that his cleverness had boxed him into a corner. 

Natasha narrows her eyes and holsters her gun, turning to watchTony's whirlwind path toward Bruce. 

"Bruce! Good to see you've decided it's not easy being green," he remarks, giving him a theatrical kiss on either cheek; he whirls to Steve, who throws up his hands in warding and takes a step back.

"As swell as it is that you're here in one piece, Tony, I'm going to have to..." Tony ignores him and gives him a ridiculously brotherly hug and a flyby smooch on the left cheek before wheeling around to Natasha, who arches an eyebrow and shakes her head.

"Not going to try, don't worry," Tony chirps. "Hey guys. I'm alive. Thor! Buddy! Have I ever told you that your brother's a lunatic? Guess what. Your brother's a fuckin' lunatic, buddy. Nothing personal." 

Thor gives a nod, and crosses his arms. "So many would say. And yet, it seems he is at least reasonable to have spared your life. Unless you yourself found some way of escaping?"

"Oh," Tony breathed, glancing around for a moment, "That, no, no, I have no fuckin' clue where I was. He let me go. I mean, it involved some unmanly running and screaming on my part, not gonna lie..." he shrugs, motions to his total lack of armor, "But he didn't rough me up too much. I think me uh, trying to save his ass bought me leverage. Or something." Another shrug.

He was lying; Thor was absolutely sure of it, and a look at Natasha's face confirmed that she knew it too. The others, perhaps... 

Well, neither of them knew his brother or were particularly tuned in to people spinning tales, perhaps. Or perhaps they didn't care, and were merely happy to have their friend back and in one piece and able to lie at all. There were, after all, many things worse than this.

"How are you feeling?" Steve asks. "You need to let Bruce give you a once over. Make sure nothing's... broken, you know." 

"Nothing's broken," Tony replied quickly. "Nope. Fully functioning. Dead tired and in need of a bottle of bourbon, maybe. Because, I mean, holy shit, how often does a person get magicked away to bumblefuck and back? And  _not_  get eaten by the god of crazypants?"

"Not often," Natasha replies, a smirk in her voice. "I'm not sure bourbon's the best thing for you, right now, whether you get a check up or not."

"Spoilsport," Tony pouts.

"Tony."

Everyone is still for a moment, then, because there is Pepper, striding out of the elevator, her face pale under freckles, shadows beneath her eyes obvious in the overhead lights. "Anthony Edward Stark."

"That's me, yes," Tony agrees, holding out his arms. "Pep. I had a moment there where I thought I'd never see that look on your face again. Got a little teary about it, I won't lie."

And Pepper is there, hugging Tony fiercely; he is returning the embrace just as tightly, and it brings a smile to Thor's face to see it. Pepper is a formidable ally and an excellent friend to Stark, and he feels he's better for knowing her, as well. Pepper, perhaps, would give Sif a run for her money, if it were merely a contest of mental relentlessness.

It was a good thing most Midgardian women were not trained in swordsmanship, he thinks, because Pepper's next move is the slug Tony square in the shoulder with one tiny fist.

"I cannot BELIEVE you risked your  _life_  for a  _crazy homicidal god_ , Tony Stark! What were you  _thinking!?!"_

"OW! Pepper,  _Christ_ , I am in a _fragile state_  right now, don't  _abuse_  me."

"Answer the question, then! You could have been  _cut in half_ , Tony! You aren't invincible!"

"I didn't want to see anyone else bite the dust, okay? Not even Loki. He's Thor's little brother," Tony replies, meeting Thor's eyes from around Pepper's sleek red ponytail, "And... I just didn't want to have to deal with that kind of thing, okay? I know it was stupid. I didn't think, I could have died,  _story of my life_ , but hey. Hey. I'm here now. My appendages are all attached, I can breathe on my own, and my brain is in my skull. No one else is dead, so... I consider this a personal victory and no amount of scowling will take that from me, Pepper. So stop firmbrowing. Yay me, I'm alive, you don't have to worry."

"Bruce did quite a lot of science to try and discover where my brother was hiding you, Stark," Thor offers. "It was most impressive. Your assistant JARVIS was of a good deal of help."

"So was Thor," Bruce offers, as if they've all agreed to continue past the awkward, "I've discovered quite a bit about Loki's particular energy signature. I'd like to analyze it with you, when you've rested up; I think we'll be able to use this information at a later date... before anything like this happens again."

"Good to hear," Steve agrees, giving them all a nod. "I'd rather not have anyone else whisked off to Never Never Land." He looks proud of himself for making a reference, and Tony totally plays it up, wiggling his eyebrows and giving a polite golf clap.

"Nice one, Stevie boy, there's hope for you yet."

"You should try and fit a nap in, before Fury demands a debriefing," Natasha offers. "Unless you want to stand here bantering. I mean, it's you, so I'm sure that's a valid option."

"No, no. Nap sounds great. I'm beat. Literally, I was beat. A little. Not fun, nope." Tony makes his way towards the elevator, giving Pepper some fluttery hand signals that end with her narrowing her eyes, throwing up her hands and giving a sigh of long suffering acceptance before she turns on her heels and clicks away, pulling out her phone and muttering something about Tony Stark being the biggest idiot to have ever made it to adulthood.

There is a good chance there is truth to this statement, Thor thinks, and as the small group breaks up, Natasha to report to Fury, Steve to do whatever Steve does, and Banner into the second elevator back to the labs, Thor slips into Tony's elevator just as the doors are closing, and crosses his arms as Tony staggers back against the wall of the tiny space. There is much that he needs to discuss with the Man of Iron, and it will not wait until Tony is able to build a story to protect himself.

"Yes, Thor, son of Odin?" Tony chirps, glancing around the much larger man's frame at the tiny black screen above the doors as it counts their ascent. 

"Tony Stark. I believe we need to talk of... the events that lead up to your return here."

" _Do we_? I mean, I'm alive. Your brother's alive. Somewhere. It's all good, right?"

"It certainly is good. Only... only you were not being truthful, below, to the group. I would like to know why."

"I ... what?"

"You _lied_. You said that you rushed to intervene to save Loki on my account. A noble explanation, and believable, perhaps not entirely untrue, but I am not a fool, Man of Iron. And you..."

The floors are not passing nearly fast enough, from the look on Tony's face.

"... I am unsure how to phrase this, so I shall be blunt. You  _feel_  like my brother's things."

" _Excuse me_?"

"You. Your... there is, I believe you call it an aura? Around you. It is as if you were one of the artifacts in the laboratory above, the things of Loki's crafting. There is a quiet  _hum_  about you. A... almost a taste. A feel. It is most complex to describe, but is more than familiar to me, Stark. If I did not see you now, I would swear that he had left his spellbook in this tiny box with me."

"I have no idea what the  _hell_  you are talking about, big guy."

"Perhaps not. But I am sure that you are at least aware of a reason for it."

" _Nope_. No clue. Other than I was in his hidey hole. I mean, it was heavy magic, I bet. Very medieval. Candles, tapestries, glowing shit, stone floors..."

Thor sighs heavily as the door dings behind them and slides open. Tony tries to sidestep around him, but Thor holds out a hand. "That would not cause such a saturation of energy. It is not how magic works; what you are saying would leave you with draped in a faint hint of it, perhaps. But it is  _not_  faint. It is not faint at all, this energy about you, and..." he leans in, eyes narrowing.

"Stark. You  _smell_  of him."

Tony pales and darts around Thor.

Thor turns, follows him out of the elevator and into the hall. "I am not angry with you. Please do not think you have to hide from me!"

"I don't want to talk about this, cos it's getting really fucking  _weird,_ dude." Tony's backstepping down the hall, and failing at an innocent expression.

Thor presses onward.

"Perhaps it  _is_  odd to you. But I am not here to make a judgement on... on whatever it is that has occurred. Truly, you saved my brother's life when I failed to act. I am in your debt, friend, and I am not accusing you of any  _crime_. I merely want to... understand. You have survived. I feared for your life; I thought my brother would murder you and we would find you broken and lifeless somewhere, and that your friends would be lost to the idea of my brother's redemption, as so many on Asgard are. But you stand before me mostly unscathed and glowing in his own magic,  _smelling of the tinctures he uses in his daily ablutions_ and I must ask you why. Surely you understand this; you are a curious man, Tony Stark. Do not begrudge me this. He is my brother, and..." 

"...and I was there with him and you weren't," Tony finishes softly, and something in his eyes gives way. "Buddy, I'd... I wish I could say something, but..."

Thor stares.  And continues to do so, there in the hall, firm and quiet and pleading with every fiber of his being.

"... he hurt me, okay?" Tony blurts out. "He... when we first arrived there, he was fucking nuts. He didn't seem to even recall who I was, or where he'd taken us... he just started peeling my armor away like it was fucking paper. I thought I was going to die. And... and I think he was going to kill me, Thor. I really thought I was going to die there. And it was pretty unmanly but I begged for my goddamn life, because what the hell else was I going to do? And he kept coming. And when my armor was gone he started breaking other stuff, and I just... just kept begging him, and pleading... and look, you know I've been through a lot. Through torture. And it... I don't know if you know what PTSD is, probably, back on Asgard, but... it was like I was back in that again, and I couldn't be brave. I just didn't want to die. And... and he stopped hurting me. He..." Tony shrugs, looks anywhere but at Thor, but Thor is listening, intent on every word. "and finally he just looked at me, and put his hands on me, and... he fixed the things that weren't... that he'd broken. He said he owed me that much, for... for saving him from your buddy's axe. And then he got weirdly quiet and I passed out and then I was back here. So... so, yeah." Tony's running his hands through his hair and looking like a trapped animal. "I don't really want to talk about this with everyone right now, okay? I really just don't, they absolutely will not understand, but I guess I owe you this."

It's quite a lot more than Thor expected he'd get from the other man. 

It is  _almost_  the truth, he realizes.

 _Almost_ , because it explains quite a bit.

It does not explain the scent, though. It doesn't explain  _that_  because Thor is now very sure that Tony has smelled this way before. At least once. Thor's mind tracks back to a moment in the kitchen, to coffee and Tony being jumpy even for Tony. Thor narrows his eyes, and considers whether or not to push forward with the realization he's come to, and then he rushes forward anyway. Thor is not exactly the  _most_  patient of Odin's children.

"By Heimdall's all-seeing gaze.  _You have shared his bed_."

Tony's eyes widen comically, and he looks as if he is choking. "I.. WHAT?"

"Do not feign confusion, Anthony Stark," Thor continues triumphantly, "For I have sensed my brother about you before. I thought it a mistake, then. A memory, nothing more. But no, I believe I am correct in this. You been taken to his bed. You... that is why you threw yourself in front of Volstagg's blade. That is why he did not murder you. He is  _fond_  of you."

"I really... cannot be having this fucking conversation with you."

"Do you deny it?" 

"I..."

"Yes?"

"I really don't want to have this conversation with you. Your brother is insane, and he almost killed me  _more than once_ , and he is a war criminal and a god and a..."

"And yet you are not denying that you have done what I have said."

"... god damn it, Thor, do you realize what you're  _saying."_

"I believe I am saying the truth of it."

" _What you are saying could get me removed from the Avengers._ Maybe put in Fury's personal dungeon, or something. Something bad. Something opposite of where I want to be in my life. _"_

"That does not make it any less the truth. And you are assuming this is knowledge I would share immediately with our companions in arms, or with Director Fury.  _Why_?"

"Because why the fuck wouldn't you?"

"Perhaps because he is my  _brother_  and more than anything else I wish him some semblance of comfort, happiness, and safety? Because those are things it has become terribly obvious I cannot provide him. Because I am well aware that he is mostly lost to me, and anything I have to offer him by way of solace. Because I know for certain he must have escaped Asgard before I was alerted to it; because he must have found you at some point before this, some point before that morning in your kitchen when I..."

"Oh CHRIST," Tony wails, and Thor ignores him to press on,

"You have seen him before last night in the forest. You must have... provided him with  _something_. Some reminder that he is not entirely lost, because before that moment with the Warriors Three he had not... the damage he wrought here had not been so serious, so deadly as his attempted invasion. Something was staying his hand."

"Maybe the fucking awful injuries he got back on Torture Planet?!" Tony snaps back. "Ever think of that? Because he was a fucking  _wreck_ when... oh,  _god damn it!"_

"You saw him then." Thor's voice grows quiet, solemn.

"Yes,  _yes_  I fucking saw him then!" Tony is shouting now, stalking back towards Thor to poke the big god right in the center of his chest. It feels like nothing, and Thor lets him do it. "Yes I did see him. I saw him broken and bloody and in fucking shreds. He... he was just there, that night, okay? He just showed up like it was  _no big deal,_ what you  _let them do to the man you claim you love like a brother_ , and asked for a fucking drink. And then I helped him shove  _bones_  into place so he could heal right, okay? He didn't even _threaten_  me, the crazy bastard."

"He didn't wish to be alone," Thor replies quietly. "He only sought company."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, wouldn't you? Wouldn't  _you_  after all that?"

"He did not... come to me."

"Of  _course_  not. I'm  _sure_  he thought you'd... no." Tony stops, sighs, runs a hand through his mussed hair. "I'm not even that big of a fuckhead. No. I don't think he thought you'd turn him back in, especially if you saw... what they did. He even said you'd have been horrified on his account. I just... I don't think he wanted to face you. I don't know what the fuck his issues are with you, it's not like he talks about that shit, you know? But..." Tony sighs angrily and flails in place. "Oh my god I didn't want to fucking do this. Not with you, not with anyone, not ever."

"And yet you are doing it."

"I  _am_  doing it, because the look on your face would melt Donald Trump's heart, goddamn it. And because you apparently have been pulling an Encyclopedia Brown on me, and because I'm fucking exhausted and I almost died  _again_ and a man can only handle so much. But this is awkward, big guy. This is really fucking awkward right now, I need to stress that."

"I do not understand why. You are hardly a chaste man; your jests on your prowess are... a regular part of conversation, it seems."

"Well, duh, no news there, Thor. But uh, it's  _your brother,_ and I mean, I assumed..."

"That I was unaware of my brother's proclivities?" Thor asks. "I am no fool, you yourself have said. And we were once very close. My brother is as flexible in his choices as he is in his form, and you are hardly the first man to hold his interest."

"Well now I just feel like a piece of meat," Tony remarks, and Thor gives a rude snort and a roll of his eyes.

"That I do not believe," he adds. "I am only concerned..."

"Oh, please don't threaten me."

"I would hardly dream of it. Loki is no delicate flower. I know... quite a bit of his tastes, Stark. Though they may shame my father, I've no opinion either way. I do wonder, however, if you are aware of what you've gotten yourself into, with your little acts of kindness and your... willingness to share your flesh with one such as my brother."

"I don't think I'm following what you're saying."

"Nothing. I am saying nothing, I suppose," Thor finally says, shaking his head. He should say, he supposes, but after everything that has been discussed the topic is best left for another time.

"And now you're the one that's full of shit."

"You have given me much. I thank you for that, and in return I promise my silence on the nature of your... survival. Whatever story you decide to give, you will have my support in it in any way it is needed. But there are more things I must have time to think over. Should I come up with anything I feel is important, I will seek you out, Tony Stark."

".... fair enough, Spaceman Spiff. Fair enough." Tony sighs again and looks behind him, towards the door to one of his many private quarters throughout the Tower. "You wouldn't hide something that would get me eaten. I'm pretty sure."

"I would not, no."

"Okay. On that note, I'm going to get some fucking sleep. And I don't... I really don't want to finish whatever this conversation from hell is any time in the immediate future. No offense."

"Do you think he will return to check in on you?" Thor asks, quietly.

"What? Here? Tonight? Uh, probably not, no. I don't think he's that stupid."

"If he is. I mean, if he does. Find some way to give him my regards, without doing so openly. I fear it would only upset him to hear it plainly."

Thor does not wait for an answer from the other man; he turns and heads back towards the elevator, leaving Tony in the middle of the hallway. There is little else he cares to say.

He takes a moment, in the elevator, to reflect that his brother would be proud of the information he has gleaned from the Man of Iron, or that he would be proud, had the information not been about him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here's an enormous chapter because Thor Has Feelings And Would Not Let Me Exclude Them All. I'm sorry this has taken so long. A lot has come up. I've been sick, I've been depressed, I've been terrified of fucking this story up and making all of you hate me, and oh, I jumped into writing femmeslash with Darcy and Loki, which is here on AO3 and you should read that too because I'm a shameless whore.
> 
> Anyway, tl:dr, sorry for the wait, I hope this makes up for it. FEELS.
> 
> It needed to happen because I don't want you all thinking I think Thor's a fucking idiot. Thor has never been an idiot in my fic, and I have never thought he was an idiot, even if I do think he's probably easily swayed with Clint's bullshit man rites like towel popping.
> 
> I didn't intend for the reveal to happen here but it just poured right the fuck out and wouldn't go back in.


	14. I'm going out, I'm gonna drink myself to death.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's digging himself just a little deeper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLOT! Look at how I can do TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS OF PLOT IN A ROW. 
> 
> Special after school thanks to thisiswhatthewatergave me for betaing and felicitygs for even more betaing and cheerleading and jesus I love you guys so much.

The nap doesn't happen. It isn't five minutes after he's closed the door that JARVIS' voice alerts him to SHIELD agents in the lobby. He gives a melodramatic sigh that is utterly  _wasted_ since he's alone, eyes the bar longingly, and decides that two shots of vodka could roughly be equivalent to a nap, or at the very least, a stabilizing agent. Ten minutes and actual clothing later, he reappears in the lobby, all smiles and a side of smart ass banter for the agents who are saddled with the task of escorting him to Fury.

As debriefings go, it isn't the worst Tony's been through. He sits in a chair that is meant to be uncomfortable and manages to look comfortable anyway, just to spite the Director. He smiles and nods his way through several creative descriptions of just how fucking stupid, reckless, and impulsive he is, and for once, just this once- he can't find it in himself to do more than feign looking a little irritated and bored. He wishes he had a million snappy comebacks, but he doesn't, because... well, he just  _doesn't._  He is fresh out of jackass things to say on this subject and he feels worn beyond belief.

He knows, too, that Fury isn't  _wrong_. He's not stupid or drunk enough to outright  _agree_  that he is a terrible goddamn idiot, because doing so would totally ruin the relationship of mutual dislike they've cultivated, but he hopes his relative silence counts for something. It's the best he's got. He spouts off a few details about Loki's hidey-hole, about how he thinks he got there or where it may be, knowing full well every word is useless, and finally Fury relents and dismisses him.

 

 Bruce pounces as soon as he enters the Tower, waving a folder of readouts from the analysis on Loki's energy signature in his face before Tony even realizes what he's looking at. Tony feels his stomach give a strange little flip as he skims the first few pages. He makes a face and takes a step back, waving away the folder. "Definitely. Yup. Fascinating. But... later," he mutters, giving an exaggerated stretch. "The fascists came and denied me my nap, and I am totally decaffeinated and unable to  _science_."

Bruce almost cracks a smile at the comment, and gives an understanding nod. "Of course. Don't worry. I'll be here when you wake up." He turns, and shuffles off with his nose in the folder,  losing himself in data again. It's impressive that he doesn't run into the elevator, Tony thinks, as the other man stops short and waits patiently. The elevator gives a soft chime and the doors swish open, and Bruce slips inside, leaving Tony alone in the foyer.

Or almost alone, because Natasha has been watching him silently throughout the entire exchange, and as she steps away from the door ( _how long had she been standing there? Jesus Christ, spooky, much_?) Tony shoots her a narrow-eyed glare. "What? You have something you wanna say, short, hot, and creepy?"

The redhead shrugs a shoulder and gives a quick shake of her head. "No. I'm sure Fury's asked you all the right ones. I'm even  _more_  sure that you've given him worthwhile answers."

"Really?" Tony asks, cocking his head. "Because I think you're a lying liar right now."

"You think that I'd lie to you?" She moves a step closer, and does not bother to look innocent.

"That's a stupid question, and you never ask those."

"Fair enough, Tony. If I  _do_  think of something, I'll ask. I hope you'll be up to answering."

"That sounds a little like a threat, Natasha."

"Probably because it was intended to."

"You know, you are  _easily_  the most frightening human being I've ever met." 

"Excellent," she replies, flashing what could very well be a genuine grin.

Tony rolls his eyes and moves towards the elevator, shaking his head.

"Stark."

He pauses, not quite turning to face her.

"Even if I think you're... just a  _touch_  full of shit right now- I'm glad you're in one piece and  _able_ to be full of shit. You're worth the trouble, most of the time. I was worried we wouldn't find you alive. That trumps knowing everything about what happened. For now."

"I take back what I said about you being terrifying," Tony tells her as the doors open. 

"Please don't. It made my day." 

Tony laughs and slinks into the elevator, thankful when the doors close and he is finally alone.

Except, he realizes as he stands in the doorway of the penthouse, staring out of the wall of windows to right, that being alone fucking  _sucks,_ and it is too goddamn late to do anything about that, because Tony been bitching about a nap and solitude all the way up until he got what he asked for.

And here he stands. Alone.  _Shit._

He doesn't want to sleep now. He can't sleep; he's not sure what he's going to see if he does. His mind is creeping back to the black hole that is all the things Loki wouldn't tell him. The more he thinks about it, the more he wants a drink. He wants to  _not_  think about those goddamn green eyes or the feeling of fingers sliding beneath his skin. 

 He'd tried to promise himself halfway through Fury's debriefing that he wouldn't find the bottom of a bottle tonight. That it would be pointless. It's not even a debate, though, here alone with a skyline and half-hidden stars and his goddamn traitorous brain. He makes a beeline for the bar, snatches a bottle of rye whiskey from his collection, pulls off the pour spout, and upends it, pounding the liquor back like it's cheap beer and he's attempting to make friends at a frat party.

It isn't long after that that the bottle is nearly empty, gripped white-knuckle tight in his fist as he exhales, inhales, rinses, repeats. He paces restlessly, tries not to forget to breathe as he debates flipping his psyche's inner table, screaming  _fuck it,_ and going balls-out for alcohol poisoning and maybe a bonus panic attack as viable solutions to his current situation.

He sprawls on the lounge Loki slept on weeks ago, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. His heartbeat is pounding away in his ears like a hyperactive child beating on its father's mid-life crisis drum set. Tony closes his eyes, lets out a long, drunken sigh, and  _finally_  lets himself fall apart. This is the only safe place to do so, away from prying eyes and concerned expressions and spies who glean too much from nothing more than a hard look at a lying playboy. He can't stop the shaking, and he doesn't even try. It would take too much effort. He lays there and shakes and even manages a single, quiet sob, now that he is safe, now that he's bluffed his way through not dying, now that he has stared down an angry psychopathic god and fucked his way through to survival, and then skipped off to lie about it some more. 

He scrubs his bottle-free hand across his face. His mind oh-so-helpfully supplies him with the memory of Loki's long, lean, bloodied body laid out beneath him, and he swallows hard, finishes the bottle and fights the urge to throw it.

Seconds later he loses the fight and flings it.

The bottle makes a haphazard arc through the air and smashes against the wall; jagged chunks of broken glass limned in whiskey go skittering across the floor in a jarring crash of sound. 

He fucking  _hates_  this. He hates, he fucking goddamn son of a bitch  _hates_  Loki right now, and he hates even more that he can't drink those green glass eyes out of his memory, how they flickered with a light like reverence, so quickly bricked up with layers of disdain and disinterest and lies, that he almost missed it entirely. He wouldn't have thought about it at all if Thor hadn't stumbled, hadn't  _almost_  said too much, and now here he was, obsessing and picking every word apart, every moment, every action, and it was forcing him through alternating bouts of anger, terror, and confusion, and doing jack shit for his nerves.

Another bottle. The world becomes blurred wet paint, the bright lights outside of his  _fantastic_  fucking windows seem worlds away and right now,  _right now_  he is in a glass cave, without tools, without scrap metal, without the force of will it would take to stop himself from dying alone in the dark.

Except he knows he's not. He's not dying. He's drunk, he's so drunk he knows he's going to be sick as a dog tomorrow, but that's not dead. It's a heavy helping of self-loathing, but Tony's never been a stranger to that particular party. He slumps back into the lounge, both hating it and comforted by it, and throws his head back against the armrest; the world spins with him, wobbles in and out of focus, and he takes another spiteful chug from the new bottle, swallows down fire and the fierce, if a little late, protestation from his stomach, and lets the bottle fall from his grip and drop to the floor with a dull  _thunk_  to roll away, spilling its contents out across the new rug.

Fuck it. He didn't like the fucking rug anyway. He'd bought it because Pepper liked it, and Pepper was never even in here, anymore, because he'd wrecked  _that_  beyond repair, which had surprised absolutely no one, including himself. Including Pepper, who loved him enough to realize that standing up for herself was smarter in the long run, and better for them both.

 _This isn't getting any better,_  he thinks, closing his eyes and gripping the back of the lounge helplessly as the world spins a little faster. It reminds him of earlier, of strange patterns in darkness, of falling forever and never and being pulled in to many directions at once, and _that_  is what sends him scrambling for the trashcan by the bar. He makes it just in time, pays homage to the gods of alcoholism and self loathing, wipes his mouth on his sleeve (because he's classy), and crawls haphazardly back to the lounge, hauls himself up on it, and passes out face down, legs crumpled beneath him, ass in the air, in hopes that, at the very least, he won't drown in his own vomit before dawn.  _You are the Bastard God of all that is wrong in my life,_ he thinks darkly, and is momentarily let down that Loki isn't around to  _say_  that to, because it's a good insult and he hates wasting those.

 

 

The last thing that Tony expects is to dream. 

He doesn't recognize any of the faces staring up at him, but it's obvious that they know  _him_ , because they are all staring murder. The force of their disdain  makes his skin hurt, and for a moment he flinches away from them. He immediately regrets the show of weakness and starts spitting insults instead- at least, he's sure they're insults, but he doesn't really understand what he's saying. The hard staccato snarl brings a collective gasp from his audience. His mouth is full of copper, thick and heavy and everything is  _pain._ Pain sinking into his bones like a blanket wrapped around a body, conforming to every nuance, every curve, every shallow and every joint, until it is so unbearable that it is nearing numb and he feels seconds away from wild panic. And then that gods damned muzzle is  _back_  and the pain finds a new level inside of him, because now even his words are taken away, and he is shoved against the hard rough bark of the tree, and he can no longer _see_  them, though his ears are filled with their curses and their joy at his pain, and with a terrible sound like ripping leather and the tear of a good silk blouse. There is pain like scattered shrapnel squirming through him, like the failure of the arc reactor in his chest, like... 

Everything is white. Hot, white, blinding, and his body goes rigid with it, with the scalding wet in waves down his shoulders, along his ribs, dripping down his thighs, and all he can smell is blood and meat and the feather musk of that damned nameless bird that looks on, curious and alien above. His mouth is metal and his bones are acid and throughout it all he cannot bear to scream, will not scream, and instead forces a laugh from behind the rune-scrawled muzzle that should keep him  _quiet_ , a wet, thick monstrous bark of sound that banks against the razor's edge of  _hatred_  at its shores. He sucks blood into his lungs and coughs, body shaking, and everything is cold, cold, cold, open, hazy, spinning, and he wraps his bruised fingers around his bindings best he can to anchor himself through the rising tide and the inevitable crash; the weight is crushing in his chest, and idly he knows it would suffocate him if he were easier to kill.

But this isn't meant to be an execution. 

This is torment.

This is meant to be _justice_ , and yet,  _he cannot stop laughing_. His body shakes with it, with the howling mania that slides through him like wine filling a glass, and with slow, cold horror he realizes that his dream is not  _his_  dream at all.

 

 

 


	15. Everyone knows what has got me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor isn't having any of this nonsense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took a bit. Mostly because I wrote it, yelled at it, and let it sit in a corner until my epic beta told me to stop being an idiot.  
> Thank her. Buy her porn.  
> Especially furry porn. Yes.  
> She loves that.

It is not the first time that Tony has nearly killed himself inside a bottle; there's a joke about losing count but Pepper Potts has  _not_  lost count; it's four, four times she's found him near dead, wasted, almost gone; only this time, this time didn't actually count for her; she hadn't been there, hadn't found him. It was JARVIS, cool and mechanical, JARVIS and Thor, who had been the first person- being- alerted to Tony's condition.

Pepper lays a hand on Tony's forehead, closes her eyes, and whispers what would be a prayer if she believed in God; she doesn't, not really, and instead tells herself this was inevitable; that she should have seen the signs in his forced smile and his hollow eyes and she'd been too angry to notice, too angry to want to. But here he is, alive, and she knows that he will wake and that she will be angry again, and he will fake another smile and crack a joke, and she will know that he is (mostly) undamaged and the anger will fade, a little, but she will be reminded yet again why they were doomed from the start.

Intimacy with Tony Stark required a mentality that Pepper is unwilling to commit to, and Tony hasn't ever really held that against her. He cares too much. She cares too much. It's a cycle, and sometimes it's bitter, but at least they know now where one another stands. She sighs, steps back and rubs her temples.

The door opens, and in the space between the soft beep of machines Thor clears his throat. "Are you well, Lady Potts?"

"Well as I can be, Thor, thank you for asking. Thank you for... for finding him."

"It was not entirely me, my lady," Thor replies, making his way over to the bed; when Thor tries, he can be quiet. He can be delicate, he can be polite. Now is one of those times. Now he places a big hand on Pepper's slim shoulder and says, "I am grateful I was near when Stark's mechanical assistant called."

"So am I," Pepper replies softly. She sighs, turns to look up at Thor and says, "I should have known this was... I should have known. I know Tony too well to think he'd be okay after everything that happened. I mean, we don't even  _know_ what happened, but I..."

"You did the best you could do," Thor replies, walking around the bed to peer down at Tony's still form. He looked fragile, bruised, and lost there against so much off-white. The arc reactor glows softly through the Egyptian cotton sheets pulled up around his chest. "You are not a seer, you are not privy to Tony's mind. You are a loyal and good friend," Thor continues, "And Tony Stark is surely thankful he has you." He cracks a smile. "It's a trying task, at times, being friends with the Man of Iron."

"And that," Pepper replies with a broken little laugh, "Is the most accurate thing I have heard all day, Thor." She stretches and gives a soul deep sigh; her facade slips a moment and exhaustion spills across her features.

"You should rest, my lady. I will keep watch over Stark." Pepper looks as if she's considering it; considering keeping watch, as well, and finally the decision is made and she slowly nods. "Thank you. I don't want him to be alone." She pats Thor's upper arm lightly as she leaves, flashes a tired and grateful smile, and makes her exit.

Thor watches her go before taking up post by Tony's bedside, leaning one shoulder on the wall, facing the larger space across the bed. 

Thor had _heard_  what Tony was screaming (the very reason Thor is sure that JARVIS chose to call upon Thor and no one else), and Thor knows his brother well enough, no matter what else has passed and drifted between them.

 

He does not have to wait long; in fact, the moment comes so quickly that Thor is rather glad he managed to urge Pepper Potts out of the room when he did.

"You invasive, reckless, prying little..." the shadows had thickened and grew, boiling up along the floor and down the ceiling, and for a moment Tony's bedside machines flickered. The scent of ozone and hot metal and blood- old blood- drifted through the room; the shadows faded, remembering physics, perhaps, slinking back to where they belonged in the sparsely decorated room. It had not been long since Thor had seen his brother; memories of the park and the forest clearing were all too clear, but this moment was not the same, this was Loki alone, angry, yes, but alone with no other Avengers around to blow the situation wide and worse.

"Brother. Loki."

Loki pauses mid stride, takes in the scene before him; Thor with his arms crossed, looming over Stark, pale and empty and still and... he bares his teeth and snarls, "But of _course_  you are here."

"I am," Thor replies smoothly, and then, meeting Loki's eyes for a brief moment, before the smaller Asgardian can decide it best to disappear, "Brother, I  _know_."

"I've no idea what you mean by that," Loki growls. 

"I know. About you, about Stark." 

"Congratulations, brother. I did indeed steal your precious Man of Iron out from under you, hours previous to this."

"I know the  _why_  of it."

Loki arched an eyebrow. "Do you?"

"He's yours, is he not?" Thor continued, moving around the bed and towards his brother, who had gone very, very still. "I am not as stupid as you'd have everyone think, you know. Stark came back drenched in your magic, Loki. Reeking of it. Power-struck." It was Thor's turn to arch an eyebrow, now, as Loki narrowed his eyes.

"I've no idea what you..."

"He told me, brother."

"Well then. That settles that. You know all." 

"Hardly."

Loki growls in response, takes to pacing, looking very much like an anxious wild thing, unsure if attack or retreat is the better option. "Why is he here?" he asks, finally. "There was no... I did not leave him terribly injured."

"You most certainly did," Thor replies, voice sharp and harsh in the relative quiet of the room. "I know you, and I know your tricks, and while there may not be scars for all to see or lost blood or broken limbs, you most certainly did not leave him uninjured. You did not see him in that hallway when he confessed to me the events previous. What you did. What  _he_ did. What  _Asgard_  did. He is here, Loki, because of  _you._  He is here because he attempted to drink himself to death  _because of you._ The question I have is, why are you here, brother? To tie up loose ends? Anger? Concern over your  _devotee_?"

"You assume far too much," Loki snaps, stalking over to Thor and wrapping a thin fist in the other man's Midgardian-style t-shirt. 

"You are clever, brother, but not so clever that I don't know the feel of worship when I find it," Thor grumbles back, and they stare at one another narrow eyed and angrily silent for several seconds, until Thor adds, "I doubt Father would..."

"Do you honestly think I care at all what Odin decrees?" Loki snaps, releasing his grip on his brother and stalking away. "You've no idea, Thor Odinson. None at all, and I have no desire to explain it to you."

"Let him be, Loki."

Loki spins on his heel, turns to stare at his brother before his eyes slide to the still form on the bed.  "Excuse me?"

"Let him be, Loki. Let him go. This hold you have on him, this... I cannot, will not hold him accountable for wanting you. I cannot blame you for seeking solace. But this? I found him screaming your name, brother, before he lost all consciousness and  _stopped breathing._  Had I not entered he would likely have died there, locked in whatever little vision he'd found himself in."

"I will not."

"You are killing him, brother. Piece by piece."

"It is not your place to decide, Thor."

"I am not deciding anything!" Thor replies, color flushing his cheeks. "I am relaying fact! You are KILLING him, brother! Do you not understand? This is why we are forbidden such action on Midgard. This is why we are not allowed..."

"You know nothing," Loki snarls. "And I will do as I please. The little mortal didn't run to you seeking protection, did he? He threw himself in front of that oaf's blade  _for me_. He hid his knowledge of my escape from you. He looks for me wherever he goes, and he lay in  _my temple_  and gave me  _worship_  and  _awe_  and he is made and mine. I will not surrender that to save your petty sensibilities."

"And when it kills him?"

"You seem terribly sure that all I am capable of is ruin," Loki remarks, walking around Thor to peer down into the bed. He reaches out, touches an index finger to the silhouette of the arc reactor. It hums along, oblivious to its hosts' condition. "You forget who I was, once. I suppose I shouldn't blame you. I had nearly forgotten myself." He runs a hand through Tony's hair, along the man's brow, and it is gesture that both proclaims ownership and offers small comfort.

"I have never been sure of such a thing. It is you who chose the path of villain."

"There's much to be said about the weight of  _choice_  in those words," Loki remarks, bending down to whisper against Tony's ear, and the gesture, the sight of Loki's lips brushing the shell of Tony's ear, the flick of his tongue as he wove his clever little spellwork and sent it quick and sure, was surely a moment made for privacy. Intimate, reverent. Thor turns his head a moment, gives the facade of privacy. Tony stirs and mutters thick, clumsy half words, eyes fluttering open, one hand reaching out, up, snagging Loki's wrist as the god is pulling away.

"Loki."

"Enough, for now," Loki replies, lifting his head to Thor, a ghost of a wry smile sliding across his face before he disappears.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * she really doesn't love that.
> 
> bonus points if you get the song reference here, too. WITHOUT GOOGLING, you whippersnappers.


	16. Maybe I should cry for help, maybe I should kill myself.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony slips from sleep to dream to being alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aight kids, I know this hasn't been updated in forever. I'm sorry. Take this update as my apology. Or yell or whatever. Anyway here we go and I hope the next won't be months coming. IRL has gotten hectic; trouble with my tendinitis, opening a new restaurant, depression, you name it... but hey... FIC!

_Tony's breath fogs in front of him as he moves through the snow-draped trees, running as if he does not need to catch his breath._

_There's a crash up ahead, and he startles to attention, jaw tight. An elk comes barrelling through the underbrush at breakneck speed. The beast is yards away but Tony can still see the whites of its eyes, and he plunges towards it, heart racing, anticipation thrilling through every fiber of his being. The animal makes a sudden sharp turn to the right and a grey shadow descends upon it, spinning it into the scarred trunk of a great oak tree; snow rains down from the branches at the violent impact. The shadow is a wolf, larger than any he's ever seen._

_The elk lets out a croak of pain, and teeth flash in the bright moonlight filtering through the bare branches from above; it is beautiful, terrible, and bloody; Tony can't look away. Another wolf slinks through the shadows; smaller, leaner. It circles silently as the larger grey beast drags the elk down, jaws locked on its thick, furry throat, hauling it to the earth. Tony slinks closer, mind screaming at him to stop, body saying_ fuck it _, and moving forward. He drops to his knees near the stained snow. The black wolf darts forward at last, and buries its snout in the great white belly of the fallen elk, rending flesh and exposing steaming entrails to the crisp night air. Tony's heartbeat echoes like a drum in his ears, and he reaches out to touch the haunch of the downed animal, to brush coarse brown fur as it gives a final shudder and grows still._

 _"_ Again _? So soon?" The black wolf is a wolf no more; Loki crouches where it stood, hands and face streaked in dark blood. His eyes are bright and he hums with energy; it almost hurts to be so close and not touch him, not draw him close, and..._

_"I couldn't help it," Tony murmurs, and realizes belatedly that he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. "I had to be here."_

_"I'm aware," Loki replies, idly licking blood from his fingertips. Tony watches, fascinated._

_"This isn't... as... bad as it was, the first time," he finally manages. "It's a hell of a lot less..._ painful _. Maybe not for the elk, I guess," he adds, cocking his head to the side and eyeing the hulking form of the dead best,  "For him this is a raw deal."_

_"It is a different sort of pain," Loki remarks wistfully. His fingers are clean, and he draws them along the terrible wound in the elk's stomach for more blood; laps it away slowly, the red dripping down his sharp chin as if it were the most natural thing in the world._

_"And bizarrely symbolic. I shouldn't be here. So close. It..." Tony motions to the wolf with his right hand, because talking at length is harder than it should be._

_"He will not harm you. This is but a memory." Loki says, at last, hand ruffling through the thick grey fur._

_"Memory? You mean following random animals on their dinner runs is a hobby of yours?" The haze is fading; for every second he spends forcing words from his mouth he feels more like himself. "You can't judge me and my cars. Or my robots. Ever."_

_"He is not_ random _," Loki's words are quiet and precise. "He is my son."_

 

"The _fuck_?" Tony opens his eyes; it's bright, but not painfully so because the only light in the room comes from a lamp near his bed; the fluorescent lights above are mercifully off. It doesn't surprise him in the slightest that the person snoozing in the chair next to his bed is Thor. The Asgardian startles awake, stretches and blinks owlishly in Tony's direction. From the chair lines on his face and the glazed look in his eyes, the god of thunder has been sleeping next to his bed for quite some time. 

"Man of Iron! You are with us once more." Thor offers a tentative, sleepy-eyed grin.

"I... yeah. What the hell happened?" As if he can't guess. Maybe it'll sound better coming from someone else. Tragic. Sympathetic. 

"I believe you tried to drown your woes in drink. You could have died, my friend. You are fortunate that your JARVIS informed me of your condition."

"I... what? Oh." A sliver of a memory creeps through his mind; taking the last pull from a bottle and flinging it into the wall. An asshole thing to do, and totally expected of a drunken, panicking Tony Stark.

"Do you recall the night before last, at all?"

"Er, pieces. Talking to you. Yeah, I remember that big blot of shame. And... drinking. I don't remember much. I think I threw a bottle. I had some... some really fucked up dreams."

"I assumed as much," Thor replies. "You... when I came upon you, Stark, you were... screaming my brother's name."

"It isn't what you think," Tony retorts, cheeks going red and he's too tired and sore and hung over for this shit, round two. 

"That isn't what I thought," Thor tells him. "So do not worry so. I must be honest, my friend. Loki was here overnight; whatever transpired between the two of you in your slumber, it offended him a good deal. He was quite upset."

"What?!" Tony sits up, and immediately wishes he hadn't; he feels the blood drain from his face; his hands go cold and clammy and he immediately bends over the bed to grab for the trash can beside it. He does his best to not give a shit that Thor is sitting patiently as he upends the sad contents of his stomach. After a few rough dry heaves, he shifts back against his pillow, scrubbing at his face with the back of his hand. "Loki was here. Did anyone else..." 

"No, of course not. We had words. He... I believe he may have assisted you some. You seem to be in a better state than it was assumed you would be in, upon waking. I doubt Dr. Banner or Ms. Potts would believe it natural."  
  

"True enough," Tony agrees with a heavy sigh. "Though, this ain't my first post alcohol poisoning rodeo, so who knows?" He pauses, shifts his eyes to Thor, and adds, "What did you say to him, Thor?"

"... nothing foolish," Thor says, after long seconds of Tony's red-eyed, bleary attempts at a side-eyed death glare.  

" _What did you say to him, Thor_."

Thor sighs then, averts his eyes and looks towards the ceiling. Despite his size, he reminds Tony of an awkward child explaining away a shattered window and an unfortunately placed baseball. Tony decides that whatever Thor says next is going to make him want to hit the big blond. "I told him that he would best serve you by leaving you be," Thor finally says. Tony is proved right.

"You did.  _What_  now?" Tony cocks his head and tries to look as pissed off as he can, but it's hard when he wants to puke again and he knows he can't stand, or even lean angrily, without scrambling for the trashcan again. He really, really wants to hit Thor. Just a little. Enough to make his point.

"I informed him that what he is doing with you is dangerous. It is. My father would not at all be pleased that Loki is encouraging worship in a Midgardian again and..."

"Wait, now. Excuse the fucking shit out of...  _no_. Dude, bumping uglies is not worship. No. Nope, this is the nope train and I am on it right now. You are  _wrong_."

"Loki did not entirely disagree, my friend. Even  _he_  knows. It's... it's all around you; it was there in the hall, and after your... dreams. You are connected to him in ways even a lover is not. Wherever he took you, it was a sacred place. You healed him, and he healed you."

"Funny how that healing felt a lot like attempted murder." Tony growls, closing his eyes and giving a heavy, shaking sigh.

"I know what you told me. I am not excusing the harm he did you, Tony, but that harm is magic too.  _Sacrifice_."

"You people are fucking insane."

Thor cocks an eyebrow and shakes his head, and it's obvious he isn't going to say anything in reply. "I will leave you to your thoughts," he says, finally, giving a deep sigh and standing. "I do not believe that Loki will return here, but if he does... be careful, Tony Stark. Do not go with him, should he offer."

Tony groans and waves at the door in response. There isn't anything intelligent or clever in his head, and he's done- done for at least the next few hours, with Asgardians. With people. With everything that isn't him. No, on second thought, he's done with him, too.  _Really_  fucking done. The door closes behind Thor, and Tony settles back against his pillows and silently refuses to admit that his eyes are leaking and that it has anything to do with stress, fear, or a strange and twisting sadness in his chest.

Tony Stark, after all, does not cry, goddamn it.

And Tony Stark absolutely does not  _worship_  anyone or anything.

 

"Tony?"

Tony jerks his head up and scrubs his arm across his face, swallowing hard and turning away from the opening door. It's Steve's earnest, worried face there, and he's coming in, brows knit in concern, shutting the door behind him even as Tony is trying to wave him away.

"Tony, I saw Thor downstairs. He said you were awake, and I wanted to come and see how you were doing, I..." he doesn't make mention of Tony's red eyes, or the dampness on his cheeks. 

Tony, for his part, is immensely grateful. "Yeah. Here I am. Not dead. When does the party start?"

Steve smiles and takes the seat Thor has all too recently vacated. "Whenever you can stagger to the common room, probably," he remarks. "I'm glad to see you're still with us. You had... well, you had everyone worried. Thor wouldn't leave your side all night."

"So I saw," Tony mutters, rolling his eyes. "Steve. Buddy. I'm still kind of... not with it."

"I can imagine."

"By not with it I mean, I can't handle any heart to hearts now. Probably ever, let's be honest."

"I see," Steve agrees.

"So. You can. You know, you can go."

"No."

Tony stops, blinks. "Excuse me?"

"No. Not yet. I'm not saying you have to pour out your soul, Tony. But something's going on with you. I want to know that this isn't going to happen again as soon as you can find your way to the liquor cabinet."

"You aren't the boss of me," Tony grumbles.

"Technically..."

"Hush." Tony sighs and fluffs his blankets over his disheveled hair. "I can't right now." 

The silence between them extends from seconds to minutes; Steve's chair creaks as he shifts his weight.

The blankets get stiflingly hot, and Tony finally comes up for air and says, "Look, it's just PTSD, okay? Some bad shit happened and I didn't talk about it before and I don't want to talk about it now, but just because I didn't come home limping and bleeding and broken, it doesn't mean that I wasn't  _hurt_ , it doesn't mean I didn't think I was gonna die, and all of this is really complicated, and I just  _cannot_. Like, I don't have the ability to form all the words and I want to puke and I kind of wish I hadn't woken up. I don't want to talk to you about this. I don't want to talk to anyone about this, because it isn't going to make it better. And newsflash: I know full well that drinking myself to death won't fix it either, Steve, but it would make it  _stop_. And that would have been enough. Okay?"

Steve sits quietly in his chair for so long that Tony wonders if maybe he hadn't heard anything Tony just said; and he turns on his side, away from Steve, trying to put some sort of space between them. Steve reaches out and places a hand on Tony's shoulder, and it is enough to make Tony's eyes water again, and he fights the sob that builds in his throat. Goddamn Steve and his  _quiet_. Goddamn Steve and his listening and acceptance and his being a good person. 

"Tony. This world is a better place with you in it. Whatever has happened, whatever will happen. You are one of my favorite people, and you are important. No matter your flaws, no matter what harm someone has done to you, no matter your mistakes. The world is better with you in it."

There is nothing Tony can say; the words are jumbled and confused and none of them do Steve or himself any goddamn justice so he lays, quiet, and after a moment, Steve's hand slips away and Steve makes his way quietly out of the room, giving Tony his privacy.

Tony hopes like hell that it lasts, this time, because he is out of energy for anyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	17. Can't Train a Moth, I Guess.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony makes stupid mistakes.

Days slip into weeks with no sign from Loki. Tony spends far too much time searching crowds, waiting in the dark of the night (alone), pacing, drinking. His smile is a ghost; Tony succeeds, as he always does, in constructing a reasonable facsimile of himself for everyone around him. He doesn't drink (where they can see), and he bangs out ridiculously effective designs in his workshop, forgets to eat and rarely sleeps, but he is Tony goddamn Stark; sleeping and eating are generally for other people even on the best of days.

Thor's words are on loop through his brain, and sometimes he thinks he hates the big beautiful bastard and other times he thinks Thor's the rope keeping him from free fall through the endless dark.

He dreams of  _that_  more than anything else, a sure sign of frayed edges and burnt candles and all the other tired old cliches. There are whispers along the edges of his subconscious; moments when the lines blur and that familiar roil of energy creeps through; images fade and burn green and he smells blood and old books and snow; there are ink black feathers and the wild musk of wolf and soil and the ozone tang of magic.

But never his face. Never his voice.

 Tony slips up one night and admits he hasn't seen Loki. Thor smiles, claps Tony on the back, tells him it's a sure sign that his brother is listening to his advice.

Tony agrees. It isn't a  _happy_  agreement, it isn't anything on the surface, but beneath it all he is burning, twisting, aching; he feels like a moth spiraling towards a fire caught behind thick glass, beating himself to ash in want of the thing that could very well be his end.

But it's _hard_. It's _sick_ , Tony knows, Tony thinks, sometimes screams- it's sick, he nearly died, nearly killed himself, and here he was with a tight chest and a dry throat, waiting. Searching. Reaching.

He climbs out of his late night bottle long enough to do battle across the skies and streets of New York when needed- and he does it well and full of snark because it's what he  _does_ , near death experience number endless or not; today it's AIM and they are everywhere he doesn't need them to be; he's lost sight of Natasha and Clint somewhere below; Thor is above and yards away dealing with some sort of ridiculous hovercraft.

Tony manages a shot that knocks the hovercraft sideways; its lasers narrowly miss the Asgardian. He gives a booming laugh and throws Mjolnir; seconds later the hovercraft is spiraling down towards the street; Tony gives a curse when he realizes the damned thing is headed directly for several horrified onlookers. "Captain! Widow!" 

They are there on the ground, herding people away from the flaming wreckage as it stutters and smokes on its collision course; it takes every ounce of strength on Tony's suit and considerable force from Thor to divert the damned thing so that it slams harmlessly into the middle of the street instead. Tony takes a moment to give Thor a shake of his head before taking off into the sky again after the next target.

Thor has the decency to look sheepish. There isn't much to say; it's hard fighting in the middle of the goddamned city; it's no Chitauri invasion, there aren't any space whales and AIM certainly isn't a terrifying alien horde, but damage is damage and it never helps their reputation to reduce public spaces to smoking rubble.

 It definitely isn't a gold star day if civilians get splattered against the local Starbucks' windows.

Tony realizes he's said that out loud when he earns a laugh from Hawkeye and of all people, Cap.

"Well, I mean," he continues.

"You're not wrong," Clint agrees. 

"I'd like to splatter AIM across Starbucks. Because I hate AIM, and I hate Starbucks," Natasha remarks dryly. "Terrible coffee."

"Because there's no vodka in it?" Clint asks, firing off four arrows before his assailant can even get in a second shot.

"Because there's no coffee in it," she replies. 

"Also no vodka, which is in and of itself terrible. Or would be, except I don't like vodka in my coffee. Unless it's all I have."

"No one asked you, Stark," Tasha glances up at Tony, doing ridiculous loops in the sky above. 

"Any topic involving liquor and how best to consume it is automatically in my court, Widow. I'm hurt that you'd think otherwise."

"Says the man who was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning how many weeks ago?" 

"For the fifth time, don't forget," Tony agrees cheerfully, crippling another hovercraft.

"I heard it was the  _seventh_ , and I think that means you get copper, dude," Clint chimes in, giving a hoot of joy when one of his arrows explodes and sends another handful of yellow bodies to the pavement.

"That's weddings you're thinking of," Steve remarks, shaking his head. He throws his shield and catches two fleeing men in yellow in the back; the first blow ricochets and takes out another. 

"If you don't think Stark is deeply committed to booze, you haven't been paying attention."

"You can talk about the task at hand any fucking time now, children," Fury chimes in. "We have a clean up team on stand by as soon as you're done dicking around."

"We're not dicking, this is not dicking," Tony retorts, ducking another laser only to get caught in his shoulder from behind. He grunts, his vision going fuzzy and colored for a moment as he spins; his suit stabilizes before he loses much height and he turns to return fire. 

"It could very well be dicking," Clint says, cocking his head. "It generally devolves to dicking."

"I'm unsure of what dicking around means," Thor remarks.

"Shut the fuck up. All of you. Get it done. I don't have the patience for this shit. Don't break anything else."

 " _Absolutely_  it's dicking," Clint mutters, and the only response over their comlinks is Natasha's low chuckle. 

They fall into default mode; it's rote by now, rounding up stragglers, ducking laser blasts; Steve and Natasha remain focused and alert, because they have no other level of operation, but Tony  _knows_  he's slipping; he lazily dodges a blast from the last hovercraft in the immediate area, the only other surviving craft has fled with Thor hot on its trail. He does a crazy loop through the air and offers a rude gesture or two to the pilot; turning his back to catch a glimpse at Hawkeye and Widow below; Natasha is gracefully breaking a man's forearm in a way that looks both impossible and impossibly painful; Clint has two AIM goons backed against a crumpled car, bow at the ready.

It's a stupid mistake; he realizes it the moment he does it, the moment that awful bone-deep blur of shocking pain sinks through him, rides his spine and blackens his vision. He hears yelling- more yelling over the comlink and it's Clint, Widow, and Cap- all of them- and he realizes he is losing air; can't breathe, can't see, slams into the side of a building-  _through_  a building, and the air is gone and JARVIS is giving him power stats and health stats in that calm-but-concerned tone he takes, that tone Tony swears he didn't program in, and all he can do is give a breathy, pained laugh. Stupid, stupid. Help is on the way. Everyone saw him get knocked through the wall. SHIELD isn't far away. This is nothing to worry over, this isn't even as bad as his last bout with attempted-suicide-by-scotch. He thinks on it, thinks why... thinks  _Loki_  for just that moment, a fleeting, quicksilver whisper. The suit is losing power. It doesn't matter. He will be okay. Stupid mistake. Sloppy, reckless Tony Stark mistake. The best kind of mistake. Almost not a mistake at all.

Everything would be fine, he thinks calmly, if it weren't for the fact that the goddamn blast hit him squarely in the back of the neck of the suit, ripping through the shoulders and crushing the support there inward. Tony would be impressed with the accuracy if it had been used against anyone but himself and his brand new suit. He is covered in  _wet_ and he realizes it is blood, from the sweet copper tang that fills his nose. He can move his legs still, can move his arms, but he feels dizzy, blurred, and it hurts to swallow. There is hot- still hot- metal gouging his flesh, and it hurts, now that he has the time to think about it. It really goddamn hurts, but he isn't dead, and he isn't paralyzed; this suit is ruined, or mostly ruined, and he can't get his faceplate off; his arms weigh too much and he's cursing mindlessly; he hates how his words are starting to slur-  _bloodloss_ \- but help will be here soon.

Help peels his faceplate off and he blinks stupidly up into Loki's feral sharp face.

" _Idiot_ ," Loki growls, and Tony offers a sloppy smile.

"Hi," he greets, "I think I missed you," and then his eyes roll up and he goes limp.

"By the  _gods_ ," Loki snarls, and they are gone moments before Clint hauls himself over the broken wall and into the rubble.

 

 

 

"You have a death wish," Loki snaps as he slaps Tony soundly across the face; it's impressive that Tony catches every word as he's brought back around to consciousness.

"I... yes?"

"Stupid," Loki hisses, and his eyes are green fire, now, and Tony blinks up at him. He notices moments later that he is entirely stripped of his suit; he also notices he is in that same creepy pagan cave place he had been in the last time Loki stripped him of his armor.

This time, he decides, it is incredibly less terrifying. He is too tired, too sore, to be afraid anyway. "Love what you've done with the place," he remarks nodding at the glowing candles.

Loki rolls his eyes; he seems more human now, less the godlike monstrous thing that had taken him to pieces. There is no desire to  _hurt_  in those eyes, beyond the slap that was still stinging Tony's face. 

"Missed you," Tony says again, swallows. It hurts. 

"Obviously," Loki replies, narrowing his eyes.

"You've got to stop tearing me out of my suits. They're expensive."

"As if money concerns you," Loki retorts. "And I had to. You were bleeding to death."

"Liar."

"Not in this, no."

"You've been gone for weeks. I didn't expect to see you again."

"I was keeping my distance. And then you had to go and try to die again. I decided that saving your life was reason enough to make an appearance."

"So you  _were_  listening to Thor."

"Not for his sake."

"Oh?" Tony arches an eyebrow and does his best to lean forward; the movement makes his vision tilt and he closes his eyes. "Ugh. Gross."

Loki turns, ignoring Tony and the various noises he makes, waits for the man to fall silent before looking back to see his brown eyes steady, nearing solemn as they take Loki in.

"What?" he asks, lifting a brow and feigning disinterest.

"It's kind of creepy, you know. Almost killing me, fucking me, saving my life. I feel like the most cliche mouse in the world."

That brings a sharp laugh from the Asgardian; a smile twists his features and he moves closer to Tony, dropping to his knees and reaching out to take the man's chin in his hand. "I assumed you understood it well enough by now."

"Well enough," Tony agrees.

Loki leans in, and Tony feels the world slip away when those cool lips meet his; he is bone-sore and bruised and exhausted and still Loki's mouth is a live wire and he finds himself reaching out, arching towards, needing, wanting, his heart pounds and he feels faint all over again; he slips, shivers, and Loki's arms are around him, holding him, pulling him in, and Tony surrenders.

He is too tired to be afraid. He misses and wants too much to bother with a show of arrogance.

He is alive, and Loki's hands are trailing his skin, easing away bruises, washing away pain with the bright hot knife of desire.

Tony forgets about AIM and the Avengers and where he's supposed to be, and how awful it's going to look that he isn't there.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy SHIT it's been forever since I updated.
> 
> Sorry. It isn't like I haven't been working on it- I've just been super busy and had a lot of life shit happen. New job, working 60-80 hours a week; horrible sort of break up, followed by a fantastic new relationship, planning a move.... life has been busy! But finally, here it is. I'm back to youcrashquimssaysfuckthepolice.tumblr.com, so drop me a line if you want to yell at me.


	18. Recognize the poison in my heart.

_Falling._  Loki's mouth on his is like falling, tumbling through the star-strewn endless expanse of space, numb, surrendering to the knowledge that this is the  _end_  of it, this is the final moment, there is no escape, only, there  _is_  more, another pounding heartbeat, another, another, and numbness slides away to a fire that aches, burns,  _freezes_ , roars through him; he hates that he is there with his fingers tight in Loki's black as night hair, that there are tears on his cheeks and he is keening high and wild in his throat when Loki breaks their kiss and buries teeth in his throat. The pain is immediate, and it eats at his vision, rolls through him in a sharp hot wave. There is blood, fresh blood leaking down his throat, creeping down his shoulder, even as the awful searing pain in his injured spine retreats and fades, eased away in the strange caress of Loki's magic. 

Tony is  _healed_. Tony is torn apart. Everything hurts, everything burns, everything is silk on skin, the whisper of flesh on flesh, Loki's mouth gliding along his ear, licking his pulse. The air smells like ozone and old books and blood and Tony cannot find enough air to speak. He tightens his grip on Loki's hair and forces him into another kiss. He shoves his tongue into Loki's mouth and tastes the copper bite of his blood on Loki's cool lips. Loki flows into the touch, wraps around the smaller man, lets Tony make his wordless demands, a low laughing growl creeping from his throat as he returns Tony's fevered kisses.

"And I had thought you too afraid for this," Loki murmurs, as Tony's hands fumble beneath far too many layers of clothing for the inventor's liking.

"You've totally misjudged me," Tony gasps, "If you think a little near death experience would keep me from... okay, it did for a few hours. A few days. I almost died again. But I..."

"I know," Loki tells him, taking Tony's face between his hands, "You needn't say it."

"I want..."

Loki silences him with another kiss, rolling them back into a pile of pillows and extremely lush-looking rugs. He finishes stripping Tony down, tearing away his undersuit while the smaller man writhes and whimpers beneath him, hands reaching out, stroking whatever part of the god they could find. He should not be here, he knows, Tony knows with every ounce of sentience in his body that he  _should not be here_ , guiding Loki to his cock, throwing his head back at the first touch of that wonderful tongue; he knows it's terrible and he knows also that he never promised Thor  _shit_ , that he isn't dead and that the rest of the team is fine and he needs this, needs it more than the Scotch to make him sleep, more than everything in his god damned lab, more than his suits, more than his money and the freedom it has always given him... he needs this moment with the sort of certainty that frightens him when he is alone in the dark, and not here, beneath his lover. 

It excites him now, really, makes his heart pound, makes him dizzy, and he licks his lips and moans and thrusts into that perfect fucking mouth and revels in every second of it, of how wrong his life is right now, and how he has never felt more alive, or more ready to die.

For Tony Stark, that's saying a lot. 

The orgasm Loki pulls from him makes him scream; his vision goes for a moment and he feels power like a wave crashing against the shore of his spine; his hands scrabble at stone, sink into fabric, flail about and he feels powerless and invincible at the same time. Loki flips him effortlessly, and they are both panting as the god readies him; Tony finds himself sinking teeth into a pillow and keening, begging, and Loki's first thrust is a fucking godsend; he goes limp, shivers beneath the larger man, finds that endless dark again and flings himself into it, riding power and lust and mindless need. 

Loki plows into him, ruthless, as lost to the fire burning between them and every ounce of desperate worship he's given as Tony is, power-drunk and there is one awful moment when his hands wrap around Tony's throat and he thinks, for that second, how easy it would be, how easy, and Tony is whimpering,  _begging_  for it, a tanned, work-roughened hand gripping Loki's, pushing; Tony's throat works beneath the grip; it hurts to swallow and he doesn't care; he's hard again and leaking, pleading wordlessly and already so, so close. The noises he's making drive right to Loki's marrow, and more than anything he wants to open Tony up and  _see_ , taste, feel... Loki grits his teeth and digs his fingers into stone instead, licks his lips, tastes Tony's blood like wine on his lips and it is the final push he needs. When he comes he howls, bell-like, deep, echoing, and it takes everything he has to stay in his current form. The magic is so thick and heady around him that it would be easy, so, so easy, to be something else, and his shadow shifts and twists along the wall, caught flickering in the candlelight. Tony catches movement out of the corner of his eye and see a wolf, sees mist, sees a serpent in black against the stone; he closes his eyes tight and cries out, a second orgasm coaxed from a single stroke of Loki's elegant, clever hands. All around them the candles burn bright and hot; the air shimmers and Loki pulls out of Tony, rolls to his side and takes Tony with him. The god wraps his arms around his devotee and buries his face in Tony's hair and breathes, fast and shallow at first, and slowly, as the seconds stretch, deeper, longer. He shudders, and Tony goes still in his arms, his own heart pounding. The adrenaline fades and he exhales against Loki's chest. He has no idea when Loki stripped. Everything is a blur. He can't move, and normally that makes him panic- and he has a feeling, a very strong feeling- that he should panic now, with the image of the shadows playing against his closed eyelids, but he is too far gone to find the fear to fuel it.

He closes his eyes and relaxes against the iron embrace; gradually, it softens. They do not speak. Neither of them notice the shine on Loki's skin, or the glowing runes crawling along the walls in beautiful flashes of gold and silver. Tony does not notice the ring of bruises around his throat, or the fact that they are not fading. Tony sighs, thinks,  _fuck it,_ and falls into dreamless sleep. Loki, his chin resting on Tony's head, does the same.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This happened because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I don't think I've ever written a chapter so fast before. It isn't long, but I wanted it out and done before it slipped away.
> 
> I don't often make a note about my choice in lyrics for titles- and after all they aren't all lyrics, but this song "Machine Gun" by Portishead is on my LokiXTony list and generally I play it when the real shit goes down. 
> 
> There's a lot I mean by the choice.
> 
> There's a lot they mean by it, too.


	19. You, you enchant me, even when you're not around.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony clears his head... a little.
> 
>  
> 
> Authors note: Sorry this has been soooo long in the making. I'm not 100% with it, but I figured I'd go with what I got instead of staring at it and hating myself. Life has been kind of insane.... I moved again, living with my boyfriend, got a new job after walking the fuck off of my old one (yes, it was that bad, because I've never done that before ever), and dealing with working 60+ hours a week, taking care of the pets, being sick like a million times.... but here goes. I might have some work life balance happening and Im definitely a little rusty on the writing. I was hoping to do NanoWriMo but I dont think I have it in me. At the very least I can update some fanfics.... I swear, we're not dead over here!

Loki wakes before Tony. It's no coincidence; Tony stirs in his sleep and Loki whispers a quick spell into his ear, soothes him deeper into rest. His long fingers glide through Tony's hair; it needs washing, Loki notes to himself. Tony smells of the remnants of expensive cologne, of machine oil and old alcohol and sweat. Fear lingers like a fine afterthought, mixed in the sweeter notes of surrender.  _Worship_. The word slides through Loki's brain and gives him a wonderful thrill. His skin gleams in the low candlelight, and he feels full and free and wild in ways he had forgotten existed. Hidden away before their altar Loki knows he could weather any storm. He pulls the smaller man against him, curls around the sleeping figure, murmurs into his hair promises, threats, need. His fingers ghost the ring of bruises on Tony Stark's fragile human throat.

"Idiot," he tells the sleeping figure. "My beautiful little idiot." He waves a hand lazily in the direction of the mess of twisted, broken armor, amuses himself with the reconstruction of the pieces, the reconfiguration of the circuitry. It is delicate work, far more complicated than the simple repairs he had done for Thor in their youth; this, this was more akin to his mother's weaving, every fiber infused with power and intention. The minutes slide by and he loses himself in the work, fascinated with Tony's original construction with how far Midgard has come in their engineering capabilities.  He slips away from Tony to inspect his work, stalking about it and running his hands along the gleaming metal, searching for weaknesses, for disconnection, signs of frayed spellwork or faulty metal weakened in the original breaking. He finds none, and this brings a crooked smile to his sharp face. He is proud of his work. Loki has always been adept at spellcraft, had always had his mother's good sense for design.

The true test would be Stark's keen eye. These suits meant as much to the inventor as Loki's books meant to him. It was almost enough to make him regret destroying the first one, but regret had always been a slippery emotion for the god. He instead decides that this repair more than makes up for his earlier actions- negating the need for any sort of apology, regret, or condolences, and puts it neatly out of his mind.

"What are you doing?" Tony asks, voice thick with sleep. He is up on his feet and padding over to Loki and the suit, eyes narrowing in a familiar look of suspicion that Loki has come to enjoy.

"I thought perhaps I would assist you in fixing your armor. Sending you home without it again is bound to raise more suspicion. It should, at the very least, assist you in avoiding a tiresome conversation with Thor about your life choices."

Tony makes a noise that might have been agreement as he circles the suit, poking, gliding fingers over metal and into joints, opening latches and peering inside. "And you did this without tools."

"Magic is a tool. A rather precise one."

Tony cocks his head, opens his mouth as if he's about to say something snide, but stops. "Right. Proof enough here. This is beautiful goddamn work. I'd almost swear I did the rebuild myself, if it weren't for..." he makes a motion at it, "there's something off. Not bad. Off. Different. In the circuitry. Logically it shouldn't, ah, be working like it is."

"Logic is a variable," Loki replies. "It functions, does it not? And you walk and breathe. The day is won, I would say." He steps back, cocks an eyebrow, and gives a smirk that could almost be construed as playful if not for the hint of darkness still playing through his eyes.

"The day is won," Tony agrees. "Hip hip hooray and confetti." He turns to Loki. "You look like you've been slightly irradiated. There a  _logical_  explanation for that, firefly?"

"Power," Loki replies with a shrug, slinking off. "I believe it has been discussed already."

"It was, a little, and it was weird then." Tony gives a quick look around, "It's weird now. I can *feel* it. More than I could before. I can see it. On you. In me. The walls. It's kind of like I'm tripping balls again and I know for a fact I'm not." He pauses. "This means Thor was right. Shit." 

"Right about what?"

"Warning me. This. You're ah, using me. For creepy god shit."

"Using you? How crude a notion, to dismiss it as something so simple. Do you feel  _used_?" Loki wraps his hand around Tony's, runs his tongue lightly along the edge of a canine. The expression is utterly predatory, and it melts Tony on every level. His throat feels dry and all he wants is to run his hands through Loki's hair, to drop to his knees and taste and touch and  _worship_.

"Yes," Tony breathes, swallows hard. "Yeah, I do, and I fucking love it and that's the actual problem isn't it? Because I don't  _let_  people use me, I don't let people break me, and here I am throwing myself on the rocks for you and begging for more." 

"Tell me you want me to stop," Loki replies, voice gone low, husky.

" _No_ ," Tony shakes his head. "No, because I don't. Even if I die, god help me, I don't. Thor was entirely goddamn right." His heart is racing, and a small part of his self-preservation is kicking and screaming in the back of his mind, telling him what an idiot he is. Again. As if it's news to him, or to Loki. Or anyone else, for that matter.

"I don't wish for you to die," Loki tells him, cupping Tony's chin in his hand. Tony nuzzles against his palm, licks it. "It gives me nothing. But this..." He leans in, kisses Tony fiercely. The smaller man moans, tasting blood and feeling his knees go weak. Loki breaks the kiss and growls, "This is everything. This is all I have left, and it is more than I have had in ages. I will not give it up, and I will not allow Thor, or anyone else, to take it from me. You will not drown in your bottles, little one. You will not be felled by your incompetent enemies. Your life is mine. You offered it up here and I took it, and I gave it back, and you are mine, now. Mine."

Tony hates himself only a little for the shiver that crawls down his spine, tightening his skin and making his knees weak. Only a little. And he'd never tell anyone. Instead he closes his eyes and breathes deep, tries to focus, to find his way through the undertow. It's difficult, but he does it. ¨You're still really fucking creepy, you know that, right?¨ he mutters, burying his face against Loki's chest before slipping out of the god's loosened grip to inspect his suit again. ¨That's a real Twilight statement you just made.¨

Tony really didn't want to be anyone's Bella.

Loki cocks his head and gives Tony a long, silent stare, and Tony is again reminded, for a moment, than Loki could in fact eat him alive. He realizes that the side effects are wearing off, because it's not impossible to take another step back, give Loki his best fake smile. He feels more himself, and when he meets Loki's gaze again the trickster is smiling, a mask of innocence that is a million times less believable than Tony's and no less attractive. ¨Oh, for the love of... even THIS?¨

¨I've no idea what you mean,¨ Loki purrs.

¨I feel like me right now because you want me to feel like me instead of all lost and starry eyed, you dick.¨

Loki's eyes widen and he turns slightly, giving a tuneful little whistle. ¨I've given you everything you wanted. And still you think the worst of me.¨ His words are light, but the look in his eyes, Tony realizes, is probably one of those looks that preceded one of the dozens of fights Thor has told him about. He recognizes it because he's seen it and ignored it on Pepper's face, and Natasha's, and it had never ended very well there, either.

¨Not the worst. I lust after you like crazy, you do things to me I didn't think were physically possible, and I believe you, kind of, when you say that you won't let anyone else kill me. I don't even think you're  _evil_ , even if you're batshit insane with the morals of a... okay, you have no morals. It would just be really fucking stupid to assume you are a cuddly godlike housecat when I have seen you eat someone's throat out. And, you know, slide your hands in my insides. And I'm turned on again. I need to go before I do something stupid. Before they freak out any more than they've already freaked out.¨ He pauses.  ¨Thank you for me not being dead. Thank you for... seeing me. Because I wanted to see you. I realize that it sort of made me stupid. That's your fault. But still, intentions and all.¨

¨That it did.¨ Loki agrees, giving him another catlike glare. ¨And that is why I shall try a little... harder, as it were, to keep you from being all 'starry-eyed'.¨

¨Maybe just show up more often and be a little less magicky and we'll all be okay.¨

Loki arches an eyebrow. ¨Show up more often?¨

¨Thor is stupid if he thinks he's going to keep me from wanting you. To see you. I mean, whatever. God or not, I'm more stubborn and definitely more spoiled. I get what I want. And so do you, apparently. So the two of us combined means he loses and he's just going to have to deal with it. Or something. You said you wouldn't kill me. That's enough for me. No." He stops. ¨It actually isn't.¨

¨What?¨

¨Just showing up.¨ Tony summons his suit and smiles as it neatly, beautifully disassembles and then re-assembles around him, quicker, more fluid than it had before. His HUD lights up and JARVIS gives a series of strange little crackles and blurs before offering a greeting.¨I have some ideas. I mean, I have ideas that aren't just hot sex or this creepy shrine. Next time, come to my lab, will you?¨ 

¨For?¨

¨Science playtime.¨

Loki nods, looking amused and a little curious, and a second later, Tony is back by the rubble, watching Clint trying to haul off sections of wall to get to a body that is no longer there. By JARVIS' estimations, only minutes have lapsed from when he disappeared. Tony clears his throat and Clint goes stiff, whipping around with his bow cocked, ready, pointed directly at the glowing arc reactor at the center of the suit.

¨Sup, buddy? Miss me?¨


End file.
